History with a Divided and Complicated Heart? The Uses of Political Memoir, Biography and Autobiography in Contemporary Northern Ireland

Roy GARLAND, Gusty Spence (Belfast: The Blackstaff Press, 2001) pp.xvi + 333. ISBN 0-85640-698-8 hbk. Máirtín Ó MUILLEOIR, Belfast’s Dome of Delight: City Hall Politics 1981-2000 (Belfast: Beyond the Pale Publications, 1999) pp.xi + 227. ISBN 1-900960-08-7 pbk. £8.99. Marie SMYTH and Marie-Therese FAY (eds.), Personal Accounts from Northern Ireland’s Troubles: Public Conflict, Private Loss (London and Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2000) pp.x + 147. ISBN 0-7453-1618-2 pbk. £9.99 0-7453-1619-0 hbk. It may not be immediately obvious that these books should be reviewed together, and it is certainly the case that there are significant differences in both content and style, but nonetheless I want to argue that they all shed light on a number of parallel themes. At the risk of clouding the important issue, it is possible to identify one of these volumes as biography, one as political memoir, and one as an edited collection of autobiographical reflections. They may be different genres, but they share several common elements, and provoke some interesting methodological concerns.