Narrative theory discerns the theme of a story and its form or “telling”. This idea is pivotal to Narrative Psychology, where narrative is presented as a way of grasping cognition (Bruner, 1986, Bruner, 2004) and the notion of narrative templates (Wertsch, 2002) is employed to account for underlying regularities in how collective memories/accounts are shaped and voiced. There is little empirical inquiry of how shared templates are accomplished in different settings, nor of how such templates accomplish everyday comprehension within communities. This paper explores two separate tellings of a political/community narrative in a Belfast nationalist community. Both draw upon a shared template, which links sense-making and identity at distinct levels within the community, but there are marked performative differences between the two tellings. This assay is distinctive in centering on a shared narrative in two settings rather than on a self-contained narrative event. It focuses on three key points pertinent to narrative pragmatics: it displays how community narrative operates as a shared sense-making resource for members; it shows that distinct discourse activities are employed to realise the underlying template, and thence pleads against seeking definitive “narrative discourse” descriptions; and it demonstrates how the narrative performances reflect power and the perceived aim of the respective interviews, thereby offering a framework for identity positioning.