LOMOND (Layers of Meaning ONline Directory)

Creation of LOMOND (Peace Process: Layers of Meaning ONline Directory (http://www.peaceprocesshistory.org/lomond) comprising more than 500 fully searchable interviews with key stakeholders in the Northern Ireland peace process). Assisted in compilation of database by Dr Darragh Gannon.

Launched at Stormont Castle by First and Deputy First Ministers of Northern Ireland.The First and deputy First Ministers, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, launched an extensive directory of surviving interviews relating to the Peace Process at Stormont on 14 June. This endorsement demonstrates cross-party and cross-community co-operation amidst general support for the €1.1 million project. Funded by the EU’s PEACE III Programme, the Peace Process: Layers of Meaning project is a three year initiative led by researchers at QMUL, in association with TCD and DkIT. The project has two main components. The first – capturing memory – is the collection of one hundred interviews with key figures in peace and reconciliation over the last forty and more years. Although once household names, many of these individuals have long since been forgotten. The aim is to capture voices that can speak authentically to the challenges of the past: voices that now demand our respect and attention. These will not be confined to the corridors of power: they will extend to every strata of society including culture, sport, health, education, community and neighbourly relations. Recording key witnesses to the most traumatic and significant events in Anglo-Irish history, the project aims to avert a major loss to national heritage. The work is urgent since, in the natural course, many are old and frail and will soon pass away. The second part of the project involves training and equipping local people in the border area to collect and conserve their own stories of conflict and peace at various levels. This work must be undertaken with a profound sense of responsibility. The cessation of widespread violence does not indicate that a society is at peace. Building for tomorrow means acknowledging the very real and deep-seated fears that exist today. Drawing on the resources of world-class universities the team will ensure that all work is conducted in an ethical, legal, and technically efficient manner, and that it has the hallmarks of quality, permanence and sustainability. Three local oral history projects will be conducted. All final stages of any peace process must involve personal and community transformation. Numerous acts of peace have been discreet and obscure; many fears and doubts are unspoken. These important recollections, voices, testimonies will be preserved for future generations. The LOMOND online directory is based on and brings together much of the valuable work that has gone before. Continually expanding and instantly accessible, it is an instructive and suggestive record of changes in thinking, in public styles and statements, in sets of possibilities, in pressures and disappointments experienced, failures as well as triumphs of imagination, and insights gained or rejected. It is hoped that it will be a first port of call for citizens, academics, policy-makers, journalists and anyone with an interest in the conflict and its resolution. Project Co-Director, Dr Anna Bryson, said: "We are delighted to have been funded to undertake this important work. Our idea is that a vast amount of information, previously dispersed and difficult to access, will be instantly available. Constantly updated and expanding, this will become a hugely powerful resource – enabling us to hear how people from various walks of life experienced the Peace Process. The interviews that we ourselves will conduct will include stories of personal discovery and transformation: accounts that never fail to move, challenge and inspire." Two guests spoke about their experience of the event: "It was an honour that my first official function as the youngest Chairman of Cavan County Council was to travel to Stormont and be privileged to witness the joint hosting of the launch of the Peace Process - Layers of Meaning Website by the First and Deputy First Ministers, from two radically different traditions. It shows how far we have come. Let us finish the journey together." Councillor Seán McKiernan - Cavan County Council "Peace is something that we cannot take for granted. We all have a responsibility to ensure that the prejudices and hurts of the past are not handed on to the next generation. Equally it is important that those impacted by violence are not forgotten. I believe this website not only allows stories to be shared but is an effective tool in the healing process itself." Richard Moore - Children in Crossfire