Memory of Northern Irish Catholics and Protestants for violent incidents and their explanations for the 1981 hunger strike.

The aim of this study was to examine the memory of Northern Irish Catholics (n = 20) and Protestants (n = 21) for violent events which had occurred over the previous 11 years and their explanations for those events. It was predicted that Catholics would recall more events involving Catholic deaths than Protestants and that Protestants would recall more events involving Protestant deaths than Catholics. Although Catholics were as likely as Protestants to recall incidents which resulted in Protestant deaths, Protestants were less likely than Catholics to recall incidents involving Catholic deaths. Also, there were divergent explanations for the 1981 hunger strike with most Protestants attributing responsibility to factors internal to the hunger strikers and most Catholics attributing responsibility to factors external to the hunger strikers.