Dr Sinéad Ring has been awarded a Charlemont Grant by the Royal Irish Academy. The grant, along with funding from University of Ottawa, will allow her to conduct a research visit to the archives of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation at the Universities of Manitoba and Ottawa.
Survivors gave evidence to the Canadian Truth and Reconciliation Commission on an absolutely confidential basis, meaning that their testimony could not be opened to scholars or the public. However, in 2017 the Supreme Court of Canada held, in the case of Canada (Attorney General) v La Fontaine [2017] 2 SCR 205, that survivors could choose to deposit their testimony to the Commission with the archive in the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation. This Centre is based at the University of Manitoba and the University of Ottawa.
Building on her existing work on legal responses to historical child sexual abuse Dr Ring will explore the ways in which Canada has provided appropriate frameworks for survivors to be heard, including giving voice to marginalised experiences and subjugated knowledges at the intersection of racialised identities and institutional abuse. A key question is how La Fontaine is being interpreted by Canadian lawyers and archivists, and how lawyers are working with archivists and survivor-activists to navigate issues of sourcing, privacy, redaction, archiving and access, as well how the archive of survivor testimony is presented to the wider public.
This research will make an important contribution to interdisciplinary conversations about how the Irish State can honour the experiences of institutional abuse survivors and educate present and future generations about this painful chapter in our history.