News & press
What is moving around the project
There has been much talk round the idea of a major museum and visitor attraction that does justice to the complexity and enormity of our troubled past and the associated, sometimes halting steps towards peace. MOTAP sees the historic Assembly Rooms in the centre of old Belfast as the ideal location for such a hugely ambitious venture.
14 Aug 2021
Belfast Telegraph
Why we need a museum of the Troubles
A call to think ambitiously about a people’s museum on a scale capable of carrying the subject with proper seriousness.
Read more →29 Feb 2024
Press
An NI Troubles peace museum for ‘a new lease of life’
A public discussion on why Northern Ireland needs a serious museum and archive infrastructure for the Troubles and peace-making era.
Read more →22 Jan 2025
Wanderlust
World Monuments Fund announces 2025 watch list for heritage sites facing major challenges
Belfast Assembly Rooms — championed by MOTAP — named alongside global heritage sites on the World Monuments Fund 2025 watch list.
Read more →21 Jan 2025
Time Out UK
The world’s 25 most ‘at risk’ heritage sites have been named — and one is in the UK
Time Out reports on the WMF 2025 list, highlighting the Assembly Rooms as the UK entry and its civic significance for Belfast.
Read more →17 Jan 2025
Irish American Magazine
Heritage site in Northern Ireland added to global list of at-risk locations
International coverage of the Assembly Rooms listing and the broader case for protecting Belfast’s civic and cultural fabric.
Read more →4 May 2021
Opinion
From the Maze to the Wall — towards a Museum of the Troubles and Peace
An argument for turning symbolic sites of division into spaces of shared learning, memory and cultural transformation.
Read more →
Our major supporters
Who is standing behind MOTAP
EU PEACE PLUS
The €1.14bn cross-border programme, managed by the Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB), supports peace and reconciliation across Northern Ireland and the border counties of Ireland — MOTAP’s primary funder.
World Monuments Fund
The international heritage organisation whose 2025 Watch listing of the Belfast Assembly Rooms — a proposal designed by MOTAP — brought global attention to the building’s civic future.
UNESCO UK
The UK National Commission for UNESCO champions culture, heritage and shared civic memory. Its recognition places the museum proposition within an international peace and heritage frame.