'EACH NEIGHBOURLY MURDER' Lost Lives and the challenge of commemorating the victims of the Northern Ireland troubles

This essay opens by considering the sensitivities surrounding any attempt to create a memorial to all the victims of the Northern Ireland troubles, and proceeds to a detailed examination of one such project, Lost Lives. The links between the methodology of the book and the aims of its writers to commemorate each individual death, to provide an alternative history of the troubles, and to address future generations are central to the discussion which follows. Drawing particularly upon the work of William Watkin and Wilhelm Verwoerd, the essay considers Lost Lives as an example of the possibilities of 'ethical mourning' and 'inclusive moral remembrance' both in its commemoration of the dead and in its implicit appeal for new and conciliatory ways of resolving the issues that divide the community.