The Northern Ireland Conflict on the Margins of History

Protestant Memory on the Border

Kenneth Funston, Cillian McGrattan

• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN:
  9781805399919
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781805399933
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Assessing the impact of paramilitary violence on border Protestants in Northern Ireland remains a critically overlooked part of the region's history. Remembered through a framework of memory that blurs the boundary between victim and perpetrator, existing scholarship often disempowers border Protestants by obscuring their experience under the Provisional IRA's campaign. This re-examination of the conflict illuminates how the Troubles impacted the Protestant community's physical, economic, and cultural presence in the border counties. Combining oral history with a broader assessment of the Provisional campaign, this book presents a compelling case study for viewing this violence as a form of ethnic cleansing.

Table of contents

• The Northern Ireland Conflict on the Margins of History
• Contents
• Maps and Tables
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Introduction
• Part A. Memory and the Northern Ireland Conflict
• Chapter 1. The Past in Northern Ireland
• Chapter 2. Memory, Forgetting and Trauma in Northern Ireland
• Part B. Memory on the Border
• Chapter 3. Protestant Memory on the Border in the 1970s
• Chapter 4. Targeted Killings and Community Trauma (1980–1987)
• Chapter 5. From the Enniskillen Poppy Day Atrocity to the 1994 Ceasefire
• Part C. Memory on the Margins of History
• Chapter 6. Protestant Memory of Ethnic Cleansing
• Chapter 7. Hubris and Insult
• Conclusion
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index