Soundscape for Northern Ireland: Living With the Troubles

View of a hastily constructed barbed wire fence that runs across a terraced street to mark a peace line or dividing line between republican and neighbouring loyalist areas of Belfast, Northern Ireland during The Troubles in April 1972 © Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images courtesy of IWM London

We worked with the team at IWM London on their latest exhibition Northern Ireland: Living With the Troubles. Marking the 25th anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, the exhibition features newly acquired objects and audio testimonies from people who lived through, and comment on, the 30 year conflict in Northern Ireland known as the Troubles — whose roots go back centuries.

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They brought us on to provide audio consultancy and soundscape composition, to design the audio within the 3-room gallery, which consists of 2 distinct layers (testimonies and soundscape), delivered via multiple wall mounted speakers, but had to be considered as one whole coherent experience. The technical intention was to deliver both of these layers as a single synchronised audio show from a single playback source.

Visitors at Northern Ireland: Living with the Troubles © Kathleen Arundell/IWM

The exhibition invites visitors to deepen their understanding of the conflict through multiple perspectives from different communities. The intention for the soundscape was to support these oral testimonies with a sound environment that would help convey a sense of time and place. We worked with transcriptions of the interviews recorded and with talented sound designer Emmet O’Donnell on building soundscapes as faithfully as possible, focusing on the details of everyday life of this time, familiar and unfamiliar.

Northern Ireland: Living with the Troubles © Kathleen Arundell/IWM

Visitors at Northern Ireland: Living with the Troubles © Kathleen Arundell/IWM

There are four key sections, in which visitors can listen to people with a range of perspectives and encounter objects that further illustrate parts of their experiences:

• The Night of the 27–28 June 1970
• The Descent into Violence
• ‘Hell in a Wee Place’
• Today and the Future

The complexity of the Troubles is much bigger than any exhibition could cover but hopefully goes some way to raising awareness and understanding. The IWM team have put together a four-part series of films to go alongside the exhibition, examining the history of the Troubles, from the causes of the conflict to the long and difficult peace negotiations, which you can view here.

If you would like to check out more of the sound work we do, or want to contact us about a project, visit our website here.

The exhibition is free entry and on until 7 January 2024.