In an examination of how witnessing autobiographical stories through a performance onstage affects audiences, this article considers the function of narrative in public space. Its key focus lies on exploring the concept of witnessing through an analysis of the audience’s reception of two autobiographical storytelling performances in Northern Ireland. Drawing on the affirmative response to the portrayal of suffering, the argument is developed that, in today’s ‘therapeutic culture’, people are used to, prepared and therefore keen to hear from personal experiences and emotions but are, at the same time, yearning to return to ‘real’ emotions in an environment of emotional commodification.

But it wasn't like that": The impact of visits to community-based museums on young people's understanding of the commemorated past in a divided society McCully, A., Weiglhofer, M., & Bates, J. (2021). "But it wasn't like that": The impact of visits to community-based museums on young people's understanding of the commemorated past in a divided society. Theory and Research in Social Education, 49(4), 510-539.

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This article addresses the function of public presentations of personal memory in a post-conflict context and explores whether they may contribute to a preservation of that conflict. In particular, it examines the reception of performed memories of violence and its aftermath by audiences who have lived through similar experiences. To do this, it will discuss observations from empirical research on a verbatim theatre production in Northern Ireland, Heroes with Their Hands in the Air, that used interviews with relatives of those killed or wounded in an incident that came to be known as 'Bloody Sunday'. Drawing on the responses to the stories portrayed, it argues that, although such performative re-enactment of memory may contribute to an affirmation of collective identity and thus to preserving boundaries, it allows a community of memory to examine past events of suffering and explore impacts that reach into the present.