A Prison Site’s Future Stirs Up the Ghosts of Its Notorious Past

Maze prison in Belfast was the site where Bobby Sands and 9 comrades died in a hunger strike for the right to be treated as political prisoners instead of criminals. The prison has since been taken down and a debate is raging over what will take its place. There is a proposal for a peace and conflict center:

"But instead of being embraced as a powerful symbol of reconciliation and a shared future, the proposed peace center has already become mired in the continuing dispute between unionists and republicans over how the story of the Troubles will be told." 

Pro-British unionists think the center will become a "shrine to terrorism." Former IRA sympathizers and Sinn Fein supporters see it instead as a symbol of their struggle.  Apparently in Belfast, as industry begins to boom, so does tourism that is connected to the ghosts of Northern Ireland's past -- the creation of "terror tours." It seems that this center will become a shrine no matter what, it is just undetermined to which side the center will be sympathetic to. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/world/europe/maze-prisons-future-stirs-up-ghosts-of-its-past.html?pagewanted=1&ref=world&_r=0

Jill Laumbacher