Truth Telling Heals the Hurt

Research undertaken by an Edge Hill lecturer reveals that "truth telling" processes play an important role in helping communities recover from mass tragedy.

Edge Hill lecturer Dr Mark McGovern, from Aigburth who specialises in Irish history and sociology and Dr Patricia Lundy of the University of Ulster have spent the last six years studying how people in close knit communities deal with the loss of family and friends.

Their work as co-editors of Ardoyne: The Untold Truth, first published in 2002 was based on the testimonies and eye witness accounts of the Ardoyne area of North Belfast, where between 1969 and 1998 people in the small, working class, nationalist community were victims of political violence.

"This latest research was developed based on the 300 interviews carried out as part of the research for Ardoyne: The Untold Truth, "said Dr McGovern. " We were keen to find out whether the people who were interview benefited from telling their stories and also whether there was an outcome on a wider political level. We?re also interested in looking at whether other communities could benefit from similar work."

The results revealed that the truth telling process was an important factor in not only providing space for an individual?s story but also a system to record marginalised perspectives on events. Issues of healing and closure were also found to be closely related to those of justice and accountability. Another key finding was that local ownership, control and participation are crucial in the success of truth telling projects.

"We are working on developing a model of truth telling that can be used by other communities. We have been working with human and civil rights organisations in Sri Lanka and in North America sharing our findings, particularly in challenging the culture of silence that can prevail in communities that have experienced trauma relating to taboo subjects."

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