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A new exhibition, sharing multiple perspectives on The Troubles in Northern Ireland, will open at London’s Imperial War Museum at the end of May
Lauren Heath-Jones | Planet Attractions | 09 May 2023
The exhibition will include archive photographs showing murals, checkpoints and army patrols Credit: Ciaran MacGowan Collection/IWM
A new exhibition dedicated to the Troubles in Northern Ireland is to open at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London, UK.
The exhibition, titled ‘Nothern Ireland: Living with the Troubles’, opens on May 26 and will share the ‘complicated and contested stories’ of the 30-year conflict from both loyalist and republican perspectives.
Exhibits will include rubber bullets, which were first used by the British army to control crowds in Belfast in the seventies, as well as a number plate removed by an army bomb disposal unit from a vehicle in Portadown, to represent the use of car bombs by the Provisional IRA and the damage they inflicted.
A public information poster warning children not to pick things up in the street, witness statements and archive photographs depicting checkpoints, murals, army patrols and bombings will also be included.
The exhibition will also feature an area dedicated to the Battle of St Matthew’s, or the Battle of Short Strand, which took place in Belfast on June 27, 1970, and saw three people shot dead. The area will include testimony from two witnesses, who were teenagers at the time.
The final section of the exhibition explores the Troubles’ legacy and the future of Northern Ireland.
“There was a realisation that this was something that the IWM should address,” said Craig Murray, lead curator of the exhibition.
“We wanted to show that it’s complex, difficult - and not over. And we wanted to listen to how and why people disagree about what happened, and air different viewpoints.
“So much is contested, but even if you disagree with what you’re hearing, it’s important to hear it.”
The exhibition was developed in partnership with an expert advisory panel, including William Blair, director of collections at the Ulster Museum in Belfast. It runs at IWM until January 7, 2024.
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