Abstract

This article makes a case for the role of history education in facilitating productive remembering of the rcfdent conflict in Northern ireland and for similar work inother contexts. It argues that in the Northern ireland context historians and history educators have been conspicuous by their absence from the debates around how society should deal with the legacy of the conflict, and suggests that history teaching can make a specific contribution. An action plan is set out for a history education project in which students canm make use of an inquiry-based, disciplinary-specific approach to gather ordinary people's oral accounts of life during the recent conflict in order to gain multiple perspectives on the "Troubles". The author maintains that this kind of memory work could enable students to deepen and expand their understanding of the past and could also provide students with a foundation to reimagine the future.