“Climbing Over Dead Brambles”? Politics and Memory within Ulster Loyalism

The Black Studies scholar and activist Martha Jones once described memory as the “place where past and present collide.”¹ That clash involves a range of social processes including not just those of “remembering,” but also of “forgetting” and sometimes of politically constructed amnesia.² Perhaps most important, memory often involves a presentation of past events that is highly selective, distorted, and altered to fit contemporary circumstances.³ This understanding often also serves as the justification for contemporary actions and the legitimation of contemporary beliefs, attitudes, goals, and political actions.⁴

Hence memory is best understood as a social construct, presented through representations that...