Chapter 11: What Role for History Teaching in the Transitional Justice Process in Deeply Divided Societies?

The motivation for writing this paper has arisen because, as a history educator working in Northern Ireland, I have become struck by the attention paid in recent years to issues of “dealing with the legacy of the past.” In the post-ceasefire period, there has been no consensus as to how to handle the legacy of over 30 years of conflict. Indeed, a series of legal enquiries into specific contentious events, most of which have yet to report, have only tended to heighten anxiety. Recently, however, civic society, particularly, has forced the issue into public attention. There are now a number of nongovernment agencies working in the field, and they have been joined by statutory intervention in the form of a Commission for Victims and Survivors and a government supported Consultative Group on the Past. My fascination regarding this movement is that, prior to the publication of the latter, there are few references made to formal education and there is a conspicuous absence of historians and history educators amongst those participating. This seems surprising since the area under consideration is the “past.”