Bin Lid Brigades and Mummy's Little Helpers: An Oral History Investigation of Communal Networks amongst the Women of West Belfast between 1970 - 1985

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Research Proposal West Belfast is one of the most researched areas of Northern Ireland. Within the literature West Belfast has assumed a "codified mythology" as one of Northern Ireland's most blighted and deprived urban communities during the peak years of violence, 1970-1985. However, there has been little systematic research into the quotidian realities of the communities who lived in this area during this period, and how events outside of the conflict affected its inhabitants. By decentring the conflict, my study will analyse how factors such as access to healthcare, poverty, childcare and domestic abuse shaped women's daily lives and why a sense of community was critical in this period of heightened violence. It is only through an ambitious interdisciplinary study, that analyses this convergence of socio-spatial history, gender history and urban geography with a community-facing oral history methodology, that a new picture of West Belfast can emerge. Critically, my project aims to move away from the compartmentalised research of the binaries that have separated the Republican Catholic communities and their Loyalist Protestant counterparts. Indeed, West Belfast has been subsumed under a normative "Republican" identity. I intend to challenge this by comparing everyday experiences across these communities, and whether ethno-nationalist loyalties affected women's access to communal networks. MethodologyOral history is the ideal methodology for this project as it directly centres women's voices. This ability to capture the language of my participants will give an insight into both their individual experiences and how the unique cultural space of West Belfast affected their language and memory. I intend to conduct between 20-25 interviews with participants drawn equally from the Catholic and Protestant communities. This is a suitable number of interviews given my project's timescale, allowing adequate time for careful recruitment, transcription and follow-ups.Oral history has been widely used in Northern Ireland. The 2014 Stormont House Agreement established a national Oral History Archive to "provide a central place to share narratives related to the Troubles". This was ratified by the later Fresh Start Agreement, 2015, and the 2020, New Decade, New Approach document. However, my project intends to remain independent of official legacy projects preferring to work with grass-roots community networks such as the Duchas Oral History Archive and Healing Through Remembering. This decision was made due to long-standing distrust from certain communities in West Belfast towards official narratives, which are feared as being "politically swayed" or "re-writing history". Current oral history projects in West Belfast only concern Catholic Republican voices. This has created a knowledge gap regarding Protestant Loyalist experiences in West Belfast. My commitment to cross-community local engagement seeks to rectify this lacuna.Impact I will recruit participants for my interviews through my work with the Falls Women's Centre, Falls Community Centre, Shankill Women's Centre, Healing Through Remembering, and Pieces of the Past project. I intend to hold multiple Project Information Events with these groups over a series of visits to discuss what my research entails and following its completion a series of Project Findings Events. Community events will be crucial to ensure participants feel centred in my project, and to create a space in which participants can voice questions, contributions and advice. My research will form part of a presentation to the recent Good Relations Resource Campaign headed by the Falls and Shankill's Women's Centres. This presentation will seek to reinforce the campaign's cross-community agenda which focuses on alleviating female hardship across both Protestant and Catholic communities.