which includes grant funding heavily reliant on the current and former activists, here as ‘tourists’, who
service we provide for visitors to the city? can share their experiences with us. It is not a one-
way experience; we can learn from our visitors as
The simple answer is that we don’t. We don’t feel the
they learn from us.
need to. We are providing what we want to provide,
and that happens to be exactly what visitors come There has been a lot of bad press in the north of
here to see. Ireland in recent years about people coming here
to learn about our recent history, and about places
Anyone who visits this museum is here to learn and organisations set up to help them do that. It
about what happened here, they are all educational has been labelled as ‘terror tourism’ by those who
visitors. They want to learn the story first-hand, wish it would stop happening. But the reality is that
in the place where it happened and from the people from all over the world have an interest in
people who were involved in it. They don’t want what happened here and in why we had a 25-year
a compromised version, tailored or softened for a war at the end of the 20th century. They know that
perceived audience. They don’t want something that the version given to them – through a British filtered
they could read on the internet or in a book. The fact media – was an outrageously distorted one, and they
that this is what we provide is one of our greatest now want to see the other sides to the story. And
strengths. this is what the Museum of Free Derry and others
provide. The part of the story that couldn’t get to an
But this does not mean that we can or should ignore international audience before, but now that same
the fact that the majority of our visitors are tourists. international audience is coming to it. Coming to
There are plenty of things that we as a site can learn of it and about it. Those who label it as ‘terror
do to facilitate their needs which do not involve tourism’ are the ones who want it to be seen as such,
compromising on our core story or objectives. as the simple story of a terrorist campaign, not as
a conflict that requires and deserves a much deeper
When writing the current narrative for the museum
analysis.
we decided to take a layered approach, with key
information in headline paragraphs and the more So we see all our visitors, no matter where they are
detailed information below. This keeps the narrative from, as being people who are here to learn about
accessible for those with less knowledge, but still our story, to find out what really happened here, and
interesting for those with a greater familiarity with not just accepting what they had previously been
the subject. We also provide translations of the full told. And we want to help teach them.
narrative into the main European languages, and
partial translations into 20+ more. But this was In short, they may be tourists when they are on the
an exercise in how to write a good narrative, not a beach, but in places like the Museum of Free Derry
compromise in the narrative. they are students.
And there is also plenty that we can learn from our
visitors. Every year we get visitors from places with
stories to tell and with experiences that can add to
our own. We get visitors from the US, where the
civil rights movement was such a direct inspiration
to ours. We get visitors from other areas who have
suffered or are suffering through their own conflicts,
like the Basque Country and Palestine. We meet
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