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Introduction: ‘The truth about stories’: Personal Perspectives on Ulster Migration

Johanne Devlin Trew
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Summary

Telling the stories and the opportunity for victims and survivors from every part of the island to tell their story is hugely important … I think it will take some considerable time before there is any sense of agreement as to how those stories should be told.

Rev Norman Hamilton, Presbyterian Moderator, media interview following release of the Saville Inquiry Report, 16 June 2010.

‘The truth about stories,’ writes Native American author Thomas King, ‘is that's all we are’ (2003: 2). From family stories, origin myths, fantastic fables or historical tales; the human being is a ‘story-telling animal … a teller of stories that aspire to truth’ (MacIntyre, 1981: 201). It is in narrative form that we store and retrieve our memories and transmit our histories, cultures and identities. As individuals, we live by storying; repeatedly telling ourselves and others who we are, what we do and where we belong. We think in story form, we remember in story, we imagine the past and the future in story. From earliest childhood we absorb stories from our parents, from our families, from the people around us – for the most part, these stories teach us new things, keep us safe and help us grow. Early – very early on – the stories begin to cohere and we each embark on the process of making our own life story; one comprised of all the others. As we journey through life we continually adjust, edit and expand our stories, and wherever we go we bring them with us and add tales of new places and new experiences. These stories and memories of our individual lives also offer insights from social, psychological and geographical perspectives on larger historical contexts by uncovering hidden histories or by supplementing the available documentary evidence. In narrative our memories and histories intersect, develop from each other, become fixed and even sometimes entrenched. This, as King reminds us, is the power of stories:

For once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world. So you have to be careful with the stories you tell. And you have to watch out for the stories that you are told (2003: 10).

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Leaving the North
Migration and Memory, Northern Ireland 1921–2011
 , pp. 1 - 8
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
Print publication year: 2013

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