Title: Heritage, identity and community engagement at Dunluce Castle, Northern Ireland
Abstract
As Northern Ireland transitions out of conflict increased attention is being paid to the role heritage can play in building peace across society and developing a more sustainable future. Recent archaeological investigations at Dunluce Castle have uncovered elements of the site’s Gaelic past and the remains of an early 17th-century town built immediately prior to the Crown-sponsored Plantation of Ulster. The project included a dynamic programme of community engagement and outreach that created opportunities to work as a group in the embodied act of recovering the physical past. This formed a space in which to challenge aspects of the region’s contested past and facilitated the renegotiation of accepted local histories and existing identity constructs.
Key words: Community, engagement, Dunluce Castle, Northern Ireland, identity, sustainability
Introduction
It is debateable whether Northern Ireland really is a post conflict society. Following the outbreak of ethno-nationalist violence in 1968, against a background of a developing civil-rights movement, the country was caught in nearly four decades of conflict (Tonge 2002). It is often portrayed as a civil-religious conflict between Catholic and Protestant communities, but was instead a conflict framed by ethno-sectarianism coupled with complex economic and social grievance sets (Cairns and Darby 1998). While the conflict is viewed as having formally ended in 1998, following the Good Friday Agreement, low-level conflict and sporadic out breaks of violence continue to impact on society (Tonge 2014). It is a place where sectarian divisions remain embedded, where communities of the two main traditions of nationalism and unionism live in different places and are, for the most part, educated separately. It is a society marked by cultural tension and where symbolism and the past continue to have significant resonance for the present. It has a limited economy that remains strongly dependent on its relationship with London with over 30% of its population working within the Public Service. Few areas have seen economic growth, but tourism has been one of the areas targeted for investment and expansion. What role then can cultural heritage play in this fragile society and how can it be integrated more successfully into a future sustainable and peaceful society? It has been recognised by many that museums have a key role to play in society as places of education, learning and understanding (Hooper-Greenhill 1999; Crooke 2001; Falk 2004; Newman and McLean 2004). However, what of the role of archaeology and more specifically archaeological practice and archaeological profession? The recovery of material culture and the interpretation of cultural sites and landscapes can contribute to a community’s sense of identity and belonging (Miller 1998), but can archaeology also lead to more sustainable societies and how can communities be better integrated into the archaeology process (Marshall 2012; Simpson and Williams 2008)? Has archaeology a role to play in peace and reconciliation and can it be integrated into transformative processes of change across this region? We recognise these are complex questions that no single, short-term project can answer. However, for the purposes of this article we focus on the proposition that involvement in the act of archaeology, seen here as an intrinsic component of our heritage practice, can lead to a degree of community empowerment amongst participants and promote dialogue and increased understanding between groups of divergent backgrounds and political/cultural traditions. Further, in our view there are not only multiple interpretations of heritage objects, but also competing views on the heritage process itself, and the relationship between community, identity and heritage. For Smith and Waterton (2009) heritage is inescapably political and contested, and therefore conflict and post-conflict heritage is not a ‘special case’ but gives insight into heritage practices in general. In this paper, we draw on an example of community archaeology in Northern Ireland, to illustrate how community participants in this project not only actively contributed to the construction of heritage meanings, but also reflected critically on the heritage process itself. This process of critical learning and engagement with archaeological practice emerged as one of the core elements of this project and effectively became the guiding aim underpinning our outreach activities. This study focuses on a major archaeological research project recently undertaken at Dunluce Castle, on Northern Ireland’s north Antrim coastline that has led to the development of an ambitious plan to establish a centre of community learning and outreach at the complex coupled with a large-scale redevelopment of visitor and research facilities at the site. Here, we examine the process by which project participants began to challenge accepted narratives of Northern Ireland’s contested past through active engagement with archaeological excavation.
Dunluce Castle
Dunluce is probably Northern Ireland’s most iconic cultural heritage site. Positioned dramatically on a high cliff edge, the ruins command a dramatic vista over the sea (figure 1). There has been human settlement at this location for over 1500 years with the earliest activity marked by a souterrain or artificial underground passage used for both storage and refuge during the Early Medieval Period (Breen 2012). During the thirteenth century an Anglo-Norman manor was established at this site and a number of mills and a farmstead were built. The castle itself was first constructed around the 1500 by the MacQuillans, a clan group who had established themselves in the region from the fourteenth century (Breen 2012). In the middle of the sixteenth century the MacDonnells, from the island of Islay off the west Scottish coast, took the castle and rebuilt many parts of it. The castle remained in their possession following the plantation of Ulster in the opening decades of the seventeenth century; an ambitious scheme where large groups of Scottish and English settlers were brought across the Irish Sea by the Crown to settle seized Gaelic lands following the Irish rebellions of the 1590s. The MacDonnells undertook their own unofficial plantations in north Antrim, remodelled Dunluce castle again and established a mercantile town immediately outside the castle walls from 1608 onwards. The town was attacked and partially burnt during the rebellion of 1641 before being temporarily reoccupied during the 1650s and 1660s. It was finally abandoned by 1690. Recent archaeological excavations have uncovered the incredibly well preserved remains of this town that had effectively been forgotten.
(FIGURE 1 NEAR HERE)
Contested Identities
As with so much of Ulster’s heritage, the site has contested interpretations. These interpretations reflect the dominant political discourses within Northern Irish society between the two major cultural traditions. On the one hand, the Unionist community, who wish to remain within the United Kingdom, see Dunluce as a site associated with the planter settlers who came from Scotland, the descendants of whom are now referred to in certain quarters as Ulster-Scots. The last decade has seen a significant increase in interest in this assignation of identity. The government agency with responsibility for its promotion defines Ulster-Scots as being linked to the large-scale migration of mostly low-land families from Scotland during the plantation to Ulster and the surviving cultural traditions associated with this movement including dialect, dance and music. One three separate visits to the archaeological excavations, Unionist politicians and representatives of the Ulster-Scots community referred to the settlers in the new town at Dunluce as ‘Ulster-Scots’. A number of prominent Ulster-Scots advocates have posited the interpretation that the settlement at Dunluce was the first Ulster-Scots town in Northern Ireland while the movement of people to this town was recently referred to by the presenter in the BBC ‘Kist o Wurds’ radio programme, sponsored by the Ulster-Scots Agency, as a ‘homecoming’ (broadcast 4 September 2011). By contrast, the nationalist community in Northern Ireland, who look politically and culturally towards a united Ireland, would instead see Dunluce as a centre of Gaelic lordship and a place that was part of a broader patchwork of Gaelic clan groups that governed Ireland before the advent of British colonialism. The plantation when viewed through a traditional nationalist perspective was a largely negative process that displaced the Gaelic Irish from their native lands and destroyed the national unification aspirations of the Irish chieftains. Neither perspective bears detailed historical scrutiny. In truth, the connections with Scotland and the movement of peoples between the two areas had been taking place for thousands of years (Lane and Campbell 2000). The town at Dunluce was home to people from a myriad of backgrounds while the vast majority of the lowlanders who arrived at the town in the opening decades of the seventeenth century returned to Scotland at the outbreak of the 1641 Rebellion and never returned. Similarly, the MacDonnells at Dunluce do not fit the mould of a traditional Gaelic chiefdom. They were a family primarily interested in their own political promotion and economic advancement and had little interest in devolving any of their assets in the interests of an Irish, or indeed, Scottish nation. Ultimately, the majority of people who lived and worked the lands had little interest in any argument associated with national sovereignty or allegiance and were more interested in the everyday challenges of survival. Dunluce was instead a place of multiple identities and voices and was a place that featured in all aspects of Ulster’s past. This was not a place exclusive to one identity or another and was instead a place that exemplifies the fluidity and diversity of past societies.
Whose heritage, whose Dunluce?
Today Dunluce is a marketing brand used to promote Northern Ireland as a visitor destination. This process began in the 1800s when images of the castle appeared on postcards and in tourism literature while the site also appeared on posters advertising the Causeway tram, a line that connected the castle to the Giant’s Causeway (figure 2).(FIGURE 2 NEAR HERE) Today the castle functions as one of the region’s primary tourism destinations on the Causeway Coastal Route, which is promoted internationally and featured prominently at airports and at the main train stations as well as on stamps and television marketing campaigns. There is a very definite sense that this image is being used to promote this place to an external audience, to people abroad who might come, spend time, and possibly invest in the north. However, while this external promotion has been visually apparent, there was an increasing disconnect between the site and the local community. Some of this separation was due to changing economic circumstances when public fairs and events that would have been organized at the castle up to 2011 were discontinued due to financial constraints. These events attracted large groups of people from the local region and effectively served as free open days. The event was re-initiated in 2014 and attracted over 5000 visitors on that day. Over the same period, entrance costs rose significantly and are now perceived as prohibitive to potential repeat visitors from the local area. There was also a sense that the castle had transformed into a ‘national’ rather than a local site, a castle that had become embedded in the national psyche rather than a site with a strong local resonance. It was managed by the state with imposing entrance gates, high charges and few initiatives to attract people from the local area. A similar process was seen at the nearby World Heritage Giant’s Causeway site where this landscape had become a place where others came to visit, but few from the local area engaged with the site or visited it. As part of a major redevelopment of the site, the National Trust have worked intensively with the local community in the nearby town of Bushmills to overcome this disengagement and have integrated the town and its residents into its management approaches. This proactive approach has been successful, and the town is enjoying something of a revival as a consequence, evidenced by its enhanced streetscape, a documented rise in business and the adoption of a number of public engagement events. No such connection with Dunluce has been created. Graham, Ashworth and Tunbridge (2000, 61) discuss the concept of an idealised landscape, largely culturally invented and notionally unspoilt places that exist with a collective cultural consciousness. In a sense, Dunluce had become such an idealised landscape or place, a place that was known for its dramatic beauty and landscape position rather than a place where real, and often brutal, history had taken place. It had almost become a natural static entity rather than being a cultural monument with an associated set of changing human narratives. As no concerted attempt had been made to document the architectural or archaeological histories of the site little was actually known about the place, and there have been few attempts to develop historically accurate narratives about its chronology and societal role. Even the guide booklets produced by the State were often widely inaccurate and, until recently, had not been updated since they had first been produced in the 1940s. In the public mind, the site is largely understood simply as a picturesque photographic opportunity.
This notion of the gradual alienation of the site from local community is further reflected in the lack of engagement with primary or secondary school audiences. It could be assumed that a site of this kind would be a significant asset for local schools and would be an attractive location for fieldtrips and learning outside of the school environment. However, neither the castle nor its associated regional set of chronological histories feature on the curriculum and its educational potential has not been fully realised by schools. Traditionally, primary level children (ages 4-11) have instead studied ancient Egypt, the Vikings and aspects of Victorian life within the UK as a whole, but did not engage with the past peoples who shaped and defined their local landscape. The recently revised Northern Ireland Curriculum now places an emphasis on skills-based learning rather than focussing on specific themes or topics (Northern Ireland Curriculum, 2014), but many teachers continue to teach the subjects they are familiar with albeit with different learning objectives. Schools are encouraged to incorporate local historical events, buildings or monuments in their teaching plans, but available learning resources on local heritage are extremely limited; there been no central attempt to develop local histories or associated resources. When teachers do engage with local sites and histories it is under their own initiative or perhaps that of a local museum, and most examples lack sufficient or sustainable resourcing. The Northern Ireland Environment Agency, which manages the Dunluce Castle site no longer employs a regional education officer and provides no curriculum-based educational resources or activities at its publicly accessible sites, the exception being Carrickfergus Castle. Many children then came to Dunluce with a strong familial understanding of the site learned from parents and had constructed their own unofficial history of the site and their area, much of which was centred on folklore. Few had any real sense of the actual histories of the site.