Manifestations of Identity: Materiality, Meaning & Mediation in Early Modern & Contemporary Ireland.

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Historical Archaeology on the Island of Ireland: New Perspectives" , at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Perhaps one of the most significant contributions made by historical archaeologists working throughout the island of Ireland is the promotion of archaeology’s remedial effects in terms of conflict mediation and reconciliation. Using the material record to challenge Ireland’s sense of cultural identity, key events in Ireland’s contested past have and continue to be reexamined and renegotiated, with territorial divisions reconfigured - both geographically and psychologically, politically and culturally.

From the material legacies of the seventeenth-century extension of British colonial control into Ulster through to more recent manifestations of identity during Northern Ireland’s commemorations of the tumultuous events of the twentieth century - known as the ‘Decade of Centenaries’ - this paper highlights some examples of the living legacies of the Ireland’s past and the concept of sharing histories for shared futures, as Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland and Britain negotiate their places in a post-Brexit Europe and global stage.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020   •
• Historical Archaeology on the Island of Ireland: New Perspectives

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 873