Description
The Eoin MacNeill Lecture was established by the Irish Manuscripts Commission in 2011. It provides an opportunity for an Irish audience to hear distinguished scholars from outside Ireland talk about the place of archives and primary sources more generally in their work.
The fifth Eoin MacNeill Lecture, given by Dagmar Hovestädt, Former Spokesperson, Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Records and Adjunct Professor Irish Human Rights Centre, University of Galway, took place on 26 November 2024.
Since the Nuremberg Trials became the original test case for the use of archives and records in international justice proceedings the world has seen the development of transitional justice as a way of dealing with the abuses perpetrated by conflict and oppressive regimes. In this compelling lecture, Dagmar Hovestädt, drawing on her years working with the Stasi records reflects on archives and truth-telling since 1945, concluding that even today there is “the satisfaction of knowing that the record of an atrocity is preserved, so it cannot be disputed”.
