Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-30T17:20:05.744Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Exerting influence? Responsibility and the public role of archaeology in divided societies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2013

Audrey Horning
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Can, or should, archaeologists adopt the mantle of the public intellectual and bring archaeology to bear on contemporary issues within divided societies? The line between the archaeologist and the citizen is never clear-cut. How do we balance the recognition that our knowledge and expertise allow us to exert influence with the necessity to act as responsible members of our own societies? I define a public intellectual as one who is not afraid to step outside professional circles and comfort zones and to engage, challenge and comment on issues of broad relevance in the present. Employing Northern Ireland as a case study, I argue that archaeologists have a responsibility to provide leadership and commentary regarding the fraught relationship between past and present.

Keywords

Northern IrelandTroublesauthoritycontested pastconflictdivided societypublic engagementUlster Scotsidentity
Type
Discussion
Information
Archaeological Dialogues , Volume 20 , Issue 1 , June 2013 , pp. 19 - 29
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Belfast City Council, 2012: Belfast cultural framework 2012–15.Google Scholar
‘Belfast's Rotterdam and Pat's Bar under threat of demolition’, Belfast telegraph, 16 June 2011.Google Scholar
Brady, N., and O'Conor, K., 2005: The later medieval usage of crannogs in Ireland, Ruralia V, 127–36.Google Scholar
Breen, C., 2012: Dunluce Castle. History and archaeology. Dublin.Google Scholar
Byrne, J., Heenan, C.G. and Robinson, G., 2012: Attitudes to peace walls. Research report to First Minister and Deputy First Minister.Google Scholar
Causeway Museum Service, 2009: 1613–2013. Exploration of the Causeway comment sheet evaluation, on file, Causeway Museum Service office, Coleraine Borough Council.Google Scholar
Connolly, S.J. (ed.), 2012: Belfast 400. People, place and history, Liverpool.Google Scholar
Connolly, S.J., and Mackintosh, G., 2012: Whose city? Belonging and exclusion in the nineteenth-century urban world, in Connolly, S.J. (ed.), Belfast 400: People, place and history, Liverpool, 237–70.Google Scholar
Cooper, D., 2006: Truthfulness and ‘inclusion’ in archaeology, in Scarre, C. and Scarre, G. (eds), The ethics of archaeology. Philosophical perspectives on archaeological practice, Cambridge, 131–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
‘Derry bomb attack linked to award’, Belfast telegraph, 17 January 2011.Google Scholar
Domanska, E., 2006: On presence. The material presence of the past. History and theory, 45 (October), 337–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donnelly, C., 2005: The I.H.S. monogram as a symbol of Catholic resistance in 17th-century Ireland, International journal of historical archaeology 9 (1), 37–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donnelly, C., 2007: The archaeology of the Ulster plantation, in Horning, A., O'Baoill, R., Donnelly, C. and Logue, P. (eds), The archaeology of post-medieval Ireland, 1550–1850, Dublin, 37–50.Google Scholar
Donnelly, C., and Horning, A., 2002: Post-medieval and industrial archaeology in Ireland, Antiquity 76 (292), 557–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dowling, M., 2007: Confusing culture and politics. Ulster Scots culture and music, New Hibernia review 11 (3), 51–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferry, F., Bolton, D., Bunting, B., O'Neill, S., Murphy, S. and Devine, B., 2011: The economic impact of post traumatic stress disorder in Northern Ireland, www.nictt.org.Google Scholar
Gray, J., 2010: Ulster Museum, Culture Northern Ireland.org, 13 October, available at www.culturenorthernireland.org/article/2910/ulster-museum.Google Scholar
Hayes, B.C., McAllister, I. and Dowds, L., 2006: In search of the middle ground. Integrated education and Northern Ireland politics, The Ark research update 42.Google Scholar
Hennessy, M., 2012: Orange Order leader calls for vote in Scottish referendum, Irish times, 26 September.Google Scholar
Horning, A., 2001: Dwelling houses in the old Irish barbarous manner. Archaeological evidence for Gaelic architecture in an Ulster plantation village, in Duffy, P., Edwards, D. and Fitzpatrick, E. (eds), Gaelic Ireland 1300–1650. Land, lordship, and settlement, Dublin, 375–96.Google Scholar
Horning, A., 2006: Archaeology, conflict, and contemporary identity in the north of Ireland. Implications for theory and practice in Irish historical archaeology, Archaeological dialogues 13 (2), 183–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horning, A., 2013: Such was the end of their feast. Violence, intimacy and mimetic practice in early modern Ireland, in Clack, T. (ed.), Archaeology, syncretism, creolisation, Oxford.Google Scholar
Macauley, C., 2013: Northern Ireland flag protests and rioting continue, Belfast telegraph, 14 January.Google Scholar
McCully, A., and Barton, K., 2009: When history teaching really matters. Understanding the intervention of school history on students’ neighbourhood learning in Northern Ireland, International journal of historical learning and teaching research 8, 28–46.Google Scholar
McDonald, H., 2009: Bridge over Troubles water, The Guardian, 29 July.Google Scholar
McKeown, L.-A., 2012: Violence flares after controversial Belfast vote over Union Flag, The Independent, 4 December.Google Scholar
McNally, F., 2012: An Irishman's diary, Irish times, 24 May, available at www.irishtimes.com/debate/an-irishman-s-diary-1.523630.Google Scholar
Moriarty, G., 2012: Party to oppose independence for Scotland, Irish times, 26 November.Google Scholar
Northern Ireland Community Archive, 2012: Plantation. Rewriting the story, available at http://niarchive.org/trails/plantation-rewriting-the-story.Google Scholar
Ó Baoill, R., 2011: Hidden history below our feet. The archaeological story of Belfast, Belfast.Google Scholar
O'Connell, S., 2012: An age of conservative modernity, 1914–1968, in Connolly, S.J. (ed.), Belfast 400: People, place and history, Liverpool, 271–316.Google Scholar
O'Keeffe, J., 2008: The archaeology of the later historical cultural landscape in Northern Ireland. Developing historic landscape investigation for the management of the archaeological resource. A case study of the Ards, County Down, Ph.D. thesis, University of Ulster, Faculty of Life and Health Sciences.Google Scholar
Sutton, M., 2001: An index of deaths from the conflict in Ireland, available at http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton.Google Scholar