Shifting memory: place, and intra-community struggle 25 years after the Good Friday Agreement

ABSTRACT

This article critically examines commemoration at the local-level, drawing on extensive qualitative research spanning over two decades in the Ardoyne community of North Belfast. This longitudinal approach allows us to track memory work in one community in the aftermath of political violence. The research shows that ‘post-conflict’ memorialization has shifted in Ardoyne, with less emphasis on victims’ voice and unresolved justice legacy issues, and towards ‘ownership’ of republican activist dead and political rivals’ memory counterclaims. The longitudinal lens provides an insight into evolving intra-community tensions over memory, struggles between memory activists, and what is driving memory contestation post-Good Friday Agreement.

KEYWORDS:

• Placed-based memory
• activism
• intra-community contestation
• intergenerational memory

Introduction

The Good Friday Agreement was reached on 10 April 1998, an agreement between the British and Irish governments and most of the political parties in Northern Ireland (NI) on how NI should be governed (The Agreement, 1998). For many, it signalled the end of political violence. Though acclaimed internationally as a model of conflict resolution, Northern Ireland stands out as a ‘post-conflict’ society that has failed to deal with the legacy and trauma of its past. To date, the policy approach has been fragmented and piecemeal (Bell et al., 2004; Lundy & McGovern, 2008b). Because of the failure to deal comprehensively with the past, a meta-conflict emerged, that is, conflict about the conflict itself. In this situation, deeply held conflicting perspectives and narratives of the conflict thrive. This has become more pronounced ‘post-conflict’, alongside a hierarchy of victimhood narrative with the implicit suggestion that there are more deserving and less (if not necessarily un-) deserving victims. In the absence of an overarching state-led mechanism to deal comprehensively with legacy issues, including remembrance of victims, civil society groups have taken the lead and found ways to preserve their memories, commemorate the dead and express their voice in public spaces.

There is considerable debate about the merits of commemorative practices in divided societies. They can have distinct and contrasting functions (sometimes simultaneously): to fuel the conflict (McDowell & Braniff, 2014), sharpen boundaries and harden animosities (Bar-Tal, 2003), and facilitate agency and the ‘right to remember’ (Rolston, 2020), provide victim acknowledgement, a form of transitional justice from below (Lundy & McGovern, 2008a) and channel peacebuilding efforts (Brown, 2019). However, there has been less focus on memory activism that generates intra-community tensions and power struggles between different sets of memory activists in the same community in the aftermath of political violence. This article addresses that research question. We apply a longitudinal lens to track memory changes and how it has been used for various political projects, the role and struggle between different sets of memory activists, and the wider forces driving intra-community struggle over memory in Ardoyne, a small Catholic/nationalist/republican (CNR) working-class community in North Belfast.

The article begins with a discussion of the research projects and methodology; this is followed by a topography of North Belfast and the general literature and theory on memory, place, and identity is then reviewed. This is followed by a detailed analysis of Ardoyne’s material landscape and memorialization. Doreen Massey’s (1995) ‘time space envelope’, Kris Brown’s (2019) concept of ‘adaptive commemoration’, and Gutman and Wustenberg’s (2021) typology of memory activism are used to shed light on the importance of place-based memory and memory activism. The limited space available precludes a comprehensive discussion of all the substantial and varied commemorative work that exists in public settings in Ardoyne, so by way of illustration, we focus on commemorative gardens, several plaques, and murals over a 25-year period. We critically explore this commemorative work to tease out its functions, intra-community tensions, and the wider political context. The final part of the article draws attention to the younger generation, those who did not live through the conflict, but are nonetheless impacted by the memory of it and struggle to have their voices and priorities heard. This work highlights that the younger generations actively retain or avoid stories of the past, making their own meaning out of these memories and applying them to reworked spaces, and new social and political realities.

Studying spatial boundaries and realities in ardoyne through participatory action research and oral history

The empirical research is presented chronologically: first, is the Ardoyne Commemoration Project (ACP), which emerged in the immediate aftermath of the 1998 GFA. This project documented the accounts of the deaths of almost 100 Ardoyne residents killed during the conflict and raised questions about unresolved legacy issues. The methodological approach was participatory action research (PAR). The community-driven ACP was made up of victims’ relatives, interested individuals, community representatives, and academic activists (Lundy & McGovern, 2005). Over three-hundred interviews were conducted between 1998 and 2001 with the victim’s relatives, friends, eyewitnesses, key community representatives and residents.

The second research project is a detailed analysis of Ardoyne’s current material landscape and memorialization and four follow-up interviews. Both authors carried out the fieldwork between April and May 2022. The interviewees are all Ardoyne residents: a key member of the Ardoyne Commemoration Project; two memory activists directly involved in current commemorative work; and a veteran community worker and memory activist.

The third research project, an oral history Ph.D. project, commenced in 2017 and remains ongoing, drawing on interviews with various generations who have grown up in Ardoyne and unpacks how memory is transmitted intergenerationally within one community (Rosato, 2021). To date, thirty interviews have been conducted. What binds the research together is the locality, and theories of memory and place, acting as a longitudinal study of one community. Reading across these memory projects at opposite ends of the post-conflict process anchors a very discrete located experience of conflict, ‘peace’, and the struggle over placed-based memory.

The Ardoyne electoral ward comprises around 6,000 people (2011 census).¹ As is well documented, the landscape of North Belfast is a sectarian patchwork of urban living (O’Dowd & McKnight, 2013), which according to Boal and Livingstone (1984, pp. 161–179), generates a multitude of ‘frontier environments’ where Catholics and Protestant areas are juxtaposed and characterized by fear of moving beyond one’s own territorial enclave. During the 1969–1971 conflict period, there was a substantial forced movement of people into and out of Ardoyne (Gilmartin, 2022).² This ensured that the area's population became more homogenous and that its boundaries were also increasingly clear. ‘Ardoyne became a nationalist island in a loyalist sea, shaping a growing sense of siege and isolation’ (ACP, 2002, p. 8); surrounded on three sides by neighbouring Protestant/unionist/loyalist working-class communities, with which it shares a series of interfaces and ‘peace walls’.³ The micro-borders within North Belfast between nationalist/republican and unionist/loyalist communities are constantly being altered by demographic shifts and redevelopment (Shirlow & Murtagh, 2006, pp. 60–61). Nonetheless, ethno-sectarian segregation in North Belfast remains a reality; communities live rigidly apart but in very close proximity, a fact that exacerbates territorialism (O’Dowd & McKnight, 2013), and is reflected in the spatial realities for Ardoyne and bordering communities.

Between 1969 and 1998, almost 3,700 conflict-related deaths occurred in Northern Ireland; shockingly, a quarter of these were within a mile radius in North Belfast (ACP, 2002, p. 5). Almost two of every five murders happened in North and West Belfast alone. Overall, death was ‘closely tied to places that were highly segregated, militarized, close to interfaces and socially deprived’ (Shirlow, 2003, pp. 80–81). Therefore topography, place, class, and space are at the heart of memorialization in Northern Ireland.

Theorizing place and memory

Maurice Halbwachs (1992, pp. 3–4) draws attention to the connections between the physical environment and memory, exploring how the collective memory of groups is based on spatial images. In the broadest sense, collective memory refers to how groups remember their past. Halbwachs (1992) suggests that memory unfolds within a spatial framework and that space is a reality that endures. Thus, we recapture the past only ‘by understanding how it is, in effect, preserved by our physical surroundings’ (ibid., 1950, p. 7). Symbols, and ritualism, belonging to a community or nation, profoundly impacts how history and past events are understood as and by a group – it is collective (or social) memory (Halbwachs, 1992). Numerous scholars have noted that the memory of a shared past has the capacity to bind members of a community together, creating a sense of intra-group identity or can facilitate continuous polarization between communities in the politics of urban space (O’Dowd & McKnight, 2013; Wang, 2008; Weedon & Jordan, 2012).

Personal memory is always simultaneously socially embedded and culturally constructed. Assmann and Czaplicka (1995, p. 134) introduce the concept of cultural memory, which, they argue, consists of past events whose memory is maintained through cultural formation (plaques, monuments, etc.), providing the continued basis for group identity. For Paul Connerton (1989), a society's collective (or social) memory gains legitimacy through the two interlinking social activities or commemorative ceremonies and bodily practices; he argues that these are intentional acts of shared memory preservation. O’Dowd and McKnight (2013, p. 372) suggest that such rituals engender territorial attachments to ‘sacred spaces’ in Belfast, ‘to the seemingly inconsequential and mundane gable walls, bricked up houses, churches, streets, and monuments … ’ A wide range of interdisciplinary research has contributed to our knowledge of identity, memory, and place in divided societies. Selimovic and Strombom’s study of the contested neighbourhood of Silwan in East Jerusalem (2015); Pullan’s (2013) study of Jerusalem’s holy sites, and O’Dowd and McKnight’s (2013, p. 266) work on religion, violence, memory, and place in Belfast, also provide important insight into the politics of urban space, how people derive a sense of belonging and identity from the memories, traditions, antagonisms, sites, and rituals engendering territorial attachments to commemorative spaces. For McDowell et al. (2015, p. 232), commemoration has a complex relationship with place, given that practices and memory processes have been employed in battles for power.

Reflecting on space and memory, Doreen Massey (1995, pp. 182–187) calls attention to conceptualizing place; she argues that places are always ‘already hybrid’ and open to a multiplicity of readings. The claims and counterclaims about a place’s present character or identity usually depend on a particular reading of the area’s past – and these can often be rival interpretations. As we will illustrate in the empirical studies below, these conflicting interpretations of the past serve to legitimate a particular understanding of the present. When trying to understand the identity of places, we cannot – or, perhaps, should not – separate space from time, or geography from history (Massey, 1995, p. 187). Thus, the identity of a place is always in the process of formation, between past, present, and future. Massey goes on to say that ‘the identity of place is very much bound up with the histories which are told of them, how those histories are told, and which history turns out to be dominant.’

What can be drawn from this is that any claim to establish the identity of a place depends upon presenting a particular reading of that history. Massey (1995, p. 188) introduces the concept ‘envelope of space-time’ to deepen our understanding of how memories in space and place are not static but fluid; memories are layered – they exist for a moment until that space is re-purposed for a different memory. Therefore, the identification and characterization of place involves time, space, and their inseparable connection. She clarifies that whatever view becomes dominant, the particular characterization of that ‘envelope of space–time,’ that place, is maintained by exercising power relations in some form (ibid., p. 190). This is crucial when considering the spatial focus of this article.

Central to our analysis of memorialization is the concept of memory activism and activists. Olick and Robbins (1998, p. 128) and other scholars previously used the term ‘memory entrepreneurs’ to denote active, local-level individuals who are crucial to constructing memory narratives. They suggest that these individuals work to establish their representations of the past and to develop remembrance strategies shaped by political and social issues. This concept has been further developed by scholars such as Dybris McQuaid (2019) and Gutman and Wustenberg (2021, p. 2), re-defining the concept to ‘memory activists’ as an ‘agent (individual or group) who strategically commemorates the past in order to publicly address the dominant perception of it’. Guterman and Wustenberg argue that this term is essential for a comprehensive understanding of how memory from below contributes to political transformation.

In post-transitional contexts, memory activists are instrumental to the conceptualization of the past within specific communities. As Jelin (2003, p. 33) notes, such activists ‘seek social recognition and political legitimacy’ of one (their own) interpretation of the narrative of the past. At the heart of this concept is the role of social and cultural memory, which is especially pertinent in societies struggling with peace after conflict. Elsa Abou Assi’s (2011) study of memory management in post-war Lebanon, and Brown’s (2019) work on ‘adaptive commemoration’ in Northern Ireland, shows how memory activists often seek to influence political discourse and promote their political interests, and in doing so, memory activists interpret, instrumentalize and sometimes distort the past. Gutman and Wustenberg (2021, p. 3) highlight how collective memory is a site of political struggle where different stakeholders compete for legitimacy for the interpretations of the past. These scholars have developed a sophisticated typology of memory activism and activists. Their typology alerts us to roles, modes of interaction and notions of temporality. They identify a ‘warrior or pluralist mode of interaction’ – subdivided into ‘a past that has ended’ or ‘the past is ongoing’ – and victims, resistors/heroes’, entangled agents, and pragmatist’s modes of memory activism. This typology has been helpful when considering the different types of activists and activism in the politics of remembrance in Ardoyne, the clashes between various activists, and that positions can evolve and change over time. As Guterman and Wustenberg note, memory activists do not necessarily always have ‘emancipatory’ agendas; but they are key actors in the politics of the past.

This article’s primary objective is to develop and expand upon these theories and concepts and to explore the connections between time, place, and struggle over memory in Ardoyne. This is achieved by considering the material landscape and memorialization of the conflict through a longitudinal lens, identifying what cultural memory artefacts and memorialization have remained, why, what is new, what functions they serve in memory elicitation and what drives intra-community contestation over memory.

The Ardoyne commemoration project: community, memory, and memorialization

In Ardoyne, the signing of the GFA created the space for people to reflect on over 30 years of conflict and the loss endured. This provided the context and dynamics for the setting up of the ACP. The project focused on ‘all those victims who, at some point in their lives, had been Ardoyne residents, irrespective of who killed them’ (ACP, 2002, p. 4). In this small, tight-knit community, 99 people were killed by various parties to the conflict. This represents one of the highest rates of fatalities of any community in Northern Ireland (Lundy and McGovern, 2008a , pp. 284). After a series of public meetings, it was decided to produce a book to document the experiences of people from the community who lived through the conflict, focusing on the stories of the deaths of the community’s 99 victims. Thus, from its inception, the ACP was a community-driven initiative.

‘The ACP offered the space for family members, neighbours and friends to tell their story and for previously excluded, silenced or marginalized voices to become part of public discourse’ (ACP, 2002, p. 290). For many who participated in the project, this was the first time they publicly spoke about their loss. The ACP methodological approach was informed by participatory action research, which was central to its work; a fundamental feature of the project was the importance of local ownership, grassroots participation, and empowerment. Over 300 people were interviewed, either for the historical context chapters and/or the personal testimonies of the next-of-kin of the 99 victims, eyewitness accounts, friends of the dead, and key individuals within the community. Because of the ongoing nature of the conflict, victims’ names and the traumatic circumstances of their death were often forgotten or overshadowed by further tragedy and loss. Therefore, the aim was to reveal the human face of loss, so often lost amid the mounting statistics.

Here it is useful to reflect on our own memory activism to tease out the challenges and dynamics at play at that time. The ACP project was sensitive to the hierarchy of victimhood narrative that had emerged post-GFA, which privileged certain victims over others. The project leaders – the memory activists – ensured that the underpinning principle of inclusivity, driven by the desire to avoid any hierarchy of victimhood, meant that all victims, irrespective of who they were or by whom they were killed, would be included (ACP, 2002; Lundy & McGovern, 2005, p. 2008). The ACP memory activists believed that everyone’s grief should be respected and that no one has a monopoly on trauma and loss. This approach was not always easy. There were tensions, and the ACP navigated several highly sensitive and controversial issues; including alleged informers killed by Irish republicans.

There have been silences and a reticence to discuss publicly certain events within Ardoyne. The ACP aimed to challenge the culture of silence and hierarchy of victimhood that had developed within the community and create intra-community dialogue. Several community forums and meetings facilitated dialogue. The ACP was, therefore, much more than a book to commemorate the dead. However, the ACP was criticized for the partiality of the project, reflected in its geographical focus (Lundy & McGovern, 2005, pp. 67–78).⁴ In dealing with certain issues, in certain areas, it can be argued that there are positive outcomes in undertaking (what has been described as) ‘single-identity’ work. That said, there is a danger in over-eulogizing bottom-up ‘single identity’ memory work. Apparent participation can entrench and reproduce rather than challenge power relations and existing marginalization and exclusions (Lundy and McGovern, 2008, pp. 286–289).

Most of the 99 victims were killed on the streets of Ardoyne, with the location often marked by a plaque, mural, or commemorative site. Many of the deaths occurred in highly contentious circumstances, and residents believed that what they had endured during the conflict was ignored and/or denied by the state, with most of the alleged state killings unresolved. The community’s commemorative sites conveyed this untold story of injustice and acted as a counter-narrative along with the ACP book. In the absence of a comprehensive legacy mechanism in NI, the ACP memory activist created a community-driven mechanism to give centrality to victims’ voices and recognition, and for information to be disclosed and shared about difficult longstanding internal conflict-related issues (Lundy & McGovern, 2005, p. 52). As one participant noted, ‘I suppose there are certain circumstances where people who have never ever had the opportunity for truth or justice, whether it’s through the courts or any other means, well, this is their opportunity to get it down on paper and have other people read about it’ (Lundy & McGovern, 2005, p. 27). The stories of the people who died from Ardoyne are private memories and, in another way, they are public and a key component of collective memory and shared identity. The ACP occupied the role of memory activists in the immediate aftermath of the GFA, and the struggle for a community-driven, participatory, and inclusive approach; centre-staging victims’ voice, ‘truth’, and justice won the argument at that time. Next, we move twenty years on to explore commemoration and space, what has emerged and why in the intervening years.

The politics of memory and space ‘post-conflict’

Within Ardoyne, there was a traditional (if good-natured) ‘divide’ between the older, narrow streets of ‘Old Ardoyne’, with its substandard housing lacking even basic amenities, and the somewhat more substantial newer houses of Glenard. The map above (Figure 1, points 1–3), shows the geographical location of ‘Old’ Ardoyne’ and Glenard and indicates that they are just yards apart. Over the years, the geographical boundaries between ‘Old Ardoyne’ and Glenard have become more blurred with urban redevelopment. As part of the redevelopment, ‘Old Ardoyne’ was demolished between the late 1970s and mid-1980s, but the history of the space is instrumental in understanding the community’s collective identity and memory of the past. It was here on 14, and 15 August 1969 that homes in Butler Street, Brookfield Street, Hooker Street, Herbert Street, and Chatham Street were burned to the ground. Many historians and community members argue that it was the B-Specials alongside the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) ⁵ and a mob of several hundred loyalist rioters that were involved in setting the houses ablaze (ACP, 2002, p. 23). Two men were killed in disputed circumstances – Sammy McLarnon (aged 27) in his own home in Herbert Street and Michael Lynch (aged 29) while standing on the corner of Butler Street.

Figure 1. Map of Ardoyne, indicating points of significance discussed in the article, interfaces, and Old Ardoyne. Note: Map created by author using Google Maps.

The longevity of this memory indicates the indelible mark that ‘69 left on the community and the pivotal position it plays in social memory. The redevelopment architecture was a labyrinth of segregated cul-de-sacs, many of the original street names remain, but there are no physical reminders of the conflict. As Massey (1995, p. 187) observes, we maintain a world in the names of old streets, for long-time Ardoyne residents, the names of streets evoke a connection with the conflict-related past. After the redevelopment, a small plaque was erected in 1994 to Sammy McLarnon in Herbert Street, near the location where he was killed in ‘69. As Rolston (2020) notes, these plaques articulate terrible loss; they invite the onlooker to think, question, or even challenge, contest, and remember. As discussed below, the main garden of remembrance, originally on the Berwick Road, was relocated to Old Ardoyne, indicating the significance of this space in the minds of residents.

To set the context, in Ardoyne, at the far end of Berwick Road, at the intersection with Brompton Park (map, Figure 1, point 1), is where the original garden of remembrance and most prominent conflict-related memorial was located since its construction in 1976. The Garden of Remembrance plaque (Figure 2) listed the names of those in Ardoyne, and the adjoining Oldpark and Ligoniel communities killed as a direct consequence of the conflict: civilians, IRA members and political activists.

Figure 2. Original Garden of Remembrance, Berwick Road, taken by author, 2016.

Fast forward to 2016, a new Garden of Reflection was unveiled as part of the Sinn Féin 1916 centenary commemorations. The original plaque and monument were re-purposed and moved. It is no coincidence that the place for the new Garden of Reflection was Butler Place/Herbert Street in ‘Old Ardoyne.’ As one memory activist put it, ‘the choice of space reflects better the history of the community, the cockpit of the conflict.’⁶ The unveiling of the new site involved a procession from the old memorial garden on the corner of Berwick Road and Brompton Park to the site in Butler Place (map, Figure 1, point 3). Beginning with a photo opportunity at the mural of the 1916 Easter Rising, located where the Berwick Road and Brompton Park meet, with 12 individuals dressed in the 1916 Easter Rising regalia. Notably, any military-style and/or insurgency displays were historicized; pageantry as opposed to protest inconceivable only a few years ago. The commemorative parade included multiple republican organizations from across Belfast, with ex-prisoners forming a prominent part of the parade, easily distinguishable by their identical green custom-made jackets and ex-POW⁷ insignia. The event was part of a wider commemoration, and a video of it exists on Sinn Féin’s YouTube channel. The unveiling itself was by relatives of leaders of the 1916 Easter Rising: Winifred Carney, Charlie Monaghan, Cathal Shannon, and Seán Mac Diarmada.

The timing of this commemoration and unveiling is not lost; coinciding with the centenary of the 1916 Rising, this unveiling continues to link 1916 and the conflict of 1969– 1998 as part of a long history of Irish republican struggle for independence. It is a common approach taken by republican memory activists to make connections with the patriot dead to justify their position, or, in some instances, their dissent from the main republican party. The video recording of the 2016 unveiling of the Garden gives interviews with ex-prisoners and republican activists: the central message was ‘cohesion,’ ‘unity of purpose,’ and ‘building on that unity moving forward.’ Yet, as discussed later, in Ardoyne, republican memorialization is fractured and contested, frequently linked to narrative-building claims about the ‘real’ or ‘rightful’ custodians of republicanism. Currently in Ardoyne, this is the political context driving the contestation over memory between different memory activists.

Claiming the ‘symbolic capital of republican memory’ (Brown & Grant, 2016, p. 151) has become increasingly central to the political agendas of both mainstream republicans and dissenter memory activism. Bill Rolston (2020) considers how memory in contexts of post-conflict or transitioning societies can be heavily contested and contentious, with multiple memory activists pursuing ways of preserving their memories and communities’ memories in the public space. The new Garden of Reflection was created by the Ardoyne, Bone, and Ligoniel Heritage Association (ABLHA); it is described as a ‘republican family’ project, ⁸ with significant ex-prisoner input. ⁹ As shown in Figure 3 below, the central plaque displays the names of over 130 people – commemorating IRA members, political activists, and civilians from Ardoyne, the Oldpark, and Ligoniel communities who died as a direct result of the conflict. The three Catholic churches are also reflected in the main monuments as representations of the communities.

Figure 3. (New) Garden of Reflection in Butler Place, taken by author, May 2022.

However, there are names not included on this memorial: one is a male killed by the IRA as an informer, another a woman killed accidentally by the IRA in an ambush on the RUC, ¹⁰ a further is an Ardoyne resident who was a member of the British army, killed by the IRA. One interviewee explained that there was tension and heated debate within the ABLHA. There was insurmountable opposition to the prospect that the name of an informer was going to be on the memorial next to IRA volunteers, possibly killed because of the action of that informer, nor the name of an Ardoyne resident who was a member of the British army, killed by the IRA.¹¹ Another republican memory activist put it like this: ‘The only ones that we would object to … the only ones we would deny the right to have a plaque there is somebody who was a known informant or an agent, their family would be told in a nice way no I don’t think that would be acceptable by the community.’¹² Once these concessions were made (or won), other names could be erased, or included (as discussed below). Rolston (2020, p. 340) notes that bottom-up memory work can mask uncomfortable facts. Moreover, it can exclude and suppress other narratives and can reflect existing hierarchies.

Of the 130 names on the central Garden of Reflection memorial, the majority are civilians – family, friends, and neighbours who lost their lives during the conflict. Overwhelmingly, however, the site and surrounding public space pay tribute to republican activists. Moreover, there is a new addition to the memorial garden: a space dedicated to republican activists who were not killed in the post-1969 conflict but died instead of natural causes. Their names are individualized on tiny ground-level plaques with the inscription ‘Óglach’ (Irish for volunteer) or ‘republican activist (patrons).’ Here’s how one republican memory activist explained the individualized plaques: ‘You’ll see there’s three distinctions – the volunteers who died of natural causes, the republican activists who would be out canvassing for Sinn Fein and supporting rallies and things like that, and you have the patrons, the republican patrons. Now that is very broad and could incorporate people who held weapons and nobody knew they held weapons, people who fed volunteers, they’re known as patrons.’¹³

As noted above, once the concession was made (or won) about who should be included or remembered, other names could be excluded or included – such as comrades who died of natural causes, and even further to include other names (i.e. patrons). These individual plaques were said to be included in the Garden in response to families’ requests for recognition of their loved ones and by ex – prisoners. The Garden of Reflection is indisputably republican. But not everyone in Ardoyne, and by no means everyone named on the memorial, would identify as republican and agree with their actions and politics. Yet, it is also true that the republican activists were also part of the community, family members, friends, and neighbours.

Directly facing the Garden of Reflection on a gable wall is a military tribute to dead IRA volunteers (Figure 4 below). This includes seven large memorial plaques with names and portraiture of the dead, flanked by armed figures in military-style clothing and a quote from Patrick Pearse, a leader of the 1916 Easter Rising. Tucked away in the top left-hand corner, almost hidden amongst the other more republican imagery, is the tiny, unobtrusive metal plaque to Sammy McLarnon – the original plaque that dates to 1994. It is distinctly different from the others. Directly below is a new plaque with religious iconography and the inscription: ‘Slaughtered for their faith 14th and 15th August 1969, Sammy McLarnon (aged 27 years) and Michael (aged 29 years). These two young men were brutally murdered by the RUC and B Special gunman during the attempted pogrom of Ardoyne.’ Family members erected the plaque to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the deaths. This is the only civilian plaque on the wall (it is placed outside those flanked by the guard of honour). In this small space that no longer shows physical signs of the original incidents, there is a high concentration of unmissable memorials that provide an insight into the impact of the conflict. Here again, we see an example of Massey’s (1995) ‘space–time envelope’ emerge, with the layers of overlapping memories of the conflict. As Selimovic and Strombom’s (2015, p. 193) point out, space is decoded and recoded in terms of identity.

Figure 4. Mural and plaques of commemoration, taken by author May 2022.

In Ardoyne, most plaques and memorials were erected by ex-prisoners and republican activists many years after the GFA. But these are more than old comrades’ reflections. The republican plaques described above remind passers-by of the volunteers who died in ‘active service’ – acknowledging their contribution, sacrifice, and loss. As one memory activist put it: ‘from a republican point of view, no matter what happened 50 years ago you aren’t forgotten, and in this 50th anniversary we have done something like eight (commemorative plaques/events) from January.’ ¹⁴ The messaging is ‘your sacrifice is our strength,’ that events of the past lead to the political project itself, and that the contribution of republican activists, especially those who ‘made the supreme sacrifice, should not be forgotten, especially by the younger post-conflict generation.’¹⁵ Peace agreements often mean painful compromises, and there can be political fallout resulting in splits and discontent. As Brown says, these consequences can be mitigated by using ‘adaptive commemoration’ to foreground ideological continuity of purpose. ‘Commemoration allows mainstream Republicanism to hold the memory of the dead, a valuable political symbol, close to their own political project, and away from ‘usurping’ spoiler groups engaged in violence’ (Brown, 2019, pp. 58–59). Memorials are important symbolic conduits for expressing a version of history and conferring legitimacy upon it.

What can be drawn from the above discussion and examples is that conflict-related commemoration can serve a political function. These memory activists are engaged in political activity that shapes the environment of post-conflict memory, which can be used to promote political transition (or not). Republicans have always commemorated their dead. But presently in Ardoyne the focus is community cohesion, reaffirming and legitimizing the political project. Foremost here is recognition of the contribution made by republican activists, especially those who made the supreme sacrifice, and in doing so, placate republican ex-prisoners, averting disaffection, or potential splits. This is the political context to current intra-community contestation over memory in Ardoyne and is central to understanding the driving force and shift in memory work. Republican memory activists have moved into key positions, and ex-prisoners are central. In this power struggle scenario, as we have shown, ‘the task of memorialization is set to be less inclusive and/or hierarchical.’¹⁶ Against the backdrop of the failure to establish an overarching legacy policy, contestation over memory thrives.

Contested memory and battle over the dead

Our analysis of the material landscape clearly shows that memorialisation reflects the contested and fractured nature within republican constituencies ‘post-conflict’ and the important role of space. Here the tension and struggle between memory activism and activists are at its sharpest. The recent Assembly Election on May 5, 2022, confirms Sinn Féin as electorally dominant. But republican memory is affected by political splintering into several groups, and commemorations that challenge mainstream republican politics are significant and persistent (Brown & Grant, 2016, p. 147). In Ardoyne, one interviewee described this as a ‘battle over the dead.’¹⁷ Dissenting groups such as Republican Network for Unity (RNU) and Saoradh have used the ‘untainted’ ideological stance of past dead republicans to challenge Sinn Féin’s political project while evoking the same histories and actors (as mainstream republicans). This has gathered pace in the ‘post-conflict’ period as dissenting groups and their opposition to the GFA has grown. McEvoy and Conway (2004, p. 540, 542) make the point that ‘death transforms the human body from a person to an object, and it is through this process of objectification that the notion of ownership often becomes synonymous with control of the remains’; there is also a ‘communal view of the shared significance of the dead.’

Thus, commemoration is important not just to those directly affected by the death but has a wider societal importance. Who ‘owns’ the dead and notions of who owns the past are intimately connected, and the dead can become sites of political and ideological contestation. One of the most renowned recent disputes concerning the dead was regarding the remains of Tom Williams, an IRA man executed and buried in Crumlin Road prison in 1942. After a long campaign to have his body disinterred and removed for burial, in 1999, 58 years after his death, several thousand people attended the commemorative funeral to Milltown Cemetery. Joe Cahill, a senior member of the Sinn Féin negotiating team, who had played a key role in persuading IRA hard-liners to back the GFA, said: ‘If Tom Williams were alive today, he would be very much in favour of the course we are taking now. I have no doubts that anybody I know who has made the supreme sacrifice would have the same thinking’ (Mullin, 1999). Thus, with death the individual becomes ‘de-individualised’, with the dead holding shared communal significance. Moreover, as we can see ‘ownership’ of the dead can be incorporated into political culture and thereby used to reassert political action. This is further reflected in the murals and memory activists’ contestation over the past in Ardoyne.

Murals as forms of mass communication indicate community sentiment at any given point. Many scholars, most prominently Bill Rolston (2004, 2010), have focused on the changing relationship between mural painting, the state, and the re-imaging of murals. Reading across such scholarship, we can trace back through the period of transition to understand the changing narratives, which indicates community sentiments at a given time. In post-GFA Ardoyne, this has become an intra-group-community ‘battle over the dead’ between different sets of memory activists. The Berwick Road in Ardoyne acts as one of the main roads through the community and has two sites of significance that we will discuss. The first is on the intersection with Alliance Avenue, an area of clustered murals and memorials reflecting the radical republican views of the Republican Network for Unity (RNU), who oppose Sinn Fein’s political project and their support for the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) (Figure 1, map, point 4). The largest on the gable wall (Figure 5 below) commemorates the Fianna Éireann¹⁸ of Ardoyne, the plaque in memory of Davy McAuley, Josh Campbell, Josie McComiskey, and Bernard Fox, all of whom died in 1972, aged 15–17. These same four Fianna boys are also commemorated separately on a plaque on the gable wall facing the new Garden of Reflection, erected by mainstream republicans.

Figure 5. Na Fianna Éireann by the Republican Network for Unity on the Berwick Road, taken by author, May 2022.

As shown in Figure 5 above, on the tarpaulin is the centred crest of Na Fianna Éireann 1916 with the inscription: ‘Truth in our lips, purity in our hearts, strength in our arms.’ This mural is another example of the battle over the dead, staking the claim that they are the inheritors of Irish republicanism. This is signified in the use of the Fianna boys, the inclusion of the pike, and the sunburst iconography, all tying the RNU to the long lineage of Irish republicans, asserting its connection to the past. As one memory activist explained: ‘the dissidents did that [Na Fianna Eireann mural] to try and generate support; and it’s an absolute shambles, they get about 20 people marching on Easter Saturday’¹⁹

Facing this mural is a collection of various murals and images (Figure 6 below) which have changed over time, reflecting the political situation and context. Beginning on the left, is Na Fianna Éireann’s emblem surrounded by Easter lilies, alongside a Fenian phoenix rising from the socialist five-pointed star, holding an Easter lily in its mouth, to a red and black image of hands in chains with a man in the middle holding a flag ‘cogús’ (which translates to ‘conscience’); at the bottom, in capital letters, it states: ‘END INTERNMENT – Cogús’. In July/August 2022, RNU replaced the latter two murals with a Palestinian solidarity image with the caption – ‘Ardoyne stand with the people of Palestine’ (Figure 7 below). The photograph shows Israeli soldiers detaining a young Palestinian man, an image that has echoes of the past in the collective memory of residents in Ardoyne. The motivation behind the image is to link Ardoyne with struggles of injustice and oppression elsewhere and align with RNU’s cause. The RNU states that it is an anti-imperialist socialist republican organization.²⁰ They disagree with popular mainstream republicanism and the Sinn Féin political project and support for the PSNI. ²¹ They see themselves as, fighting against what they see as a side-lining of aspects of the past, insisting on the unequivocal validity of their interpretation of history, to the exclusion of alternatives. These memory activists see continuity with the past.

Figure 6. Na Fianna Éireann Easter lilies, Republican Network for Unity and Cogús murals by Republican Network for Unity, taken by author, May 2022.

Figure 7. ‘Ardoyne stand with the people of Palestine’, taken by author August 2022.

There are many other examples of attempts to appropriate, claim ‘ownership’ of, or instrumentalize the dead. There are accounts of the RNU asserting responsibility for the funerals of recently dead republican activists, and efforts to host 50th anniversary commemorative events of IRA volunteers, only to be forbidden by the family of the dead.²² RNU has held Easter commemorations at this site drawing on similar histories and iconography to mainstream republicans, the guest speakers highly disparaging of Sinn Féin’s political project. ²³ The act of commemorating and claiming ‘ownership’ of the dead, as discussed above, can be incorporated by memory activists to reaffirm and legitimize political ideology or political action. Here public space plays a crucial role. The subtleties of this dialogue or battle within Ardoyne may be lost on the frequent tourist visitor and outsider.

Challenging memories: the ceasefire generation

When considering the battle over controlling the narrative, the ceasefire generation are presenting themselves as an additional group of memory activists (those born during the peace process or after the GFA). This final section of the article explores an oral history project which probes the relationship the ceasefire generation has with memory of the conflict (Rosato, 2021).²⁴ Of the thirty interviews conducted to date with Ardoyne residents, we draw upon ten interviews with participants aged nineteen to twenty-five. The core research questions were: ‘How is memory passed on?’ and ‘How do the next generation understand and interact with space?’ To understand the ceasefire generation’s relationship to the past, we build from the theory of intergenerational memory.

Janna Thompson (2009, p. 195) describes intergenerational memory as accounts of the past that are ‘passed on from one generation to the next in a family … or community by means of stories’ often told by parents or community elders. They continue to have significance for members for many generations and are crucial to a group’s identity. Building from Thompson, the definition we put forward understands intergenerational memory as intertwined with the ceasefire generations’ own experiences of conflict-related violence during ‘peacetime’, often not considered as part of the Troubles, but with its roots firmly embedded within this history. For the ceasefire generation the inherited emotions become reinforced through their own life experiences, which is important for understanding their perceived place within the community.

Although Ardoyne as a site of geo-political tension and conflict has somewhat changed, the legacies, peace walls, murals, and spatial boundaries of division remain within the landscape, acting as constant reminders, both for those who lived through the conflict and for the ceasefire generation. During interviews it became apparent that most of the participants feel detached from the conflict-related narrative and social memory of the community. Those who have experienced trauma and lived through events that stem from the conflict, such as the Holy Cross Girls School incident in 2001,²⁵ felt disconnected from the current memory activism of republican ex-prisoners and dissident groups. According to a 21-year-old female youth volunteer,

There are so many issues … that affect young people more now than the conflict, that I think people want it over but there are some minorities who don’t and keep dragging it back. The likes of dissidents and paramilitaries, who seem to be … just using the conflict as a cover up for what they really want to do. They’re using it as an agenda.

Another 18-year-old male was of the view that ‘murals and gardens of remembrance build on the idea of us against them’ or are used to reinforce the dominant voice in Republicanism. The following quote indicates the frustration and disconnect between the ceasefire generation and the generations before.

So much work is being done here to put the past in the past, but there’s a small minority who won’t let go and bring it into the present, they reignite it. Like what’s the point … put something positive there, to support the community. Like the younger ones are going to see that [the RNU dissident mural] and ask what it means, then there are thinking about it and ‘what happened and all’ – instead of just getting a clean slate from here on in.

Whilst republican ex-prisoners and dissidents battle over memory and space, the young people, especially those who are community workers and volunteers, are pushing for a different future and a form of social commemoration that reflects their experiences and their place within the Ardoyne community. As one 20-year-old male community youth volunteer said, ‘we are trying to get more murals to represent young people and the positive things in the community, not bringing it back[wards].’An example of the ceasefire generation memory activism is the original garden of remembrance has been replaced by the Ardoyne Youth Club’s aptly named ‘Garden of Hope’, unveiled on 10 September 2019 to coincide with World Suicide Prevention Day. Here we see the young people as political actors, empowered to participate in community politics in matters concerning them, solidifying their position as community members and as memory entrepreneurs/ activists (Kallio & Häkli, 2013, p. 4).

The mural in Figure 8 reflects current issues that the younger generation face, namely, the rising mental-health crisis among younger people. This site acts as an example of Massey’s ‘space–time envelope’, highlighting that the memories of the younger generation – shaped by contemporary socio-economic struggles – layer over older memories of the past. It also reaffirms Garner et al. (2021, p. 234) point that the post-conflict generation may ‘reinterpret, repurpose, and reject the meaning of their inherited surroundings,’ and subsequent generations can renegotiate and rework narratives of the past to fit present circumstances. There is a distinctly positive message in the mural which addresses the issue of suicide that has become almost an epidemic in North Belfast, as suicide rates in NI are some of the highest in the UK.²⁶ From the oral history interviews with young people, we can understand the mural as an outcome of this generation's political formation and as a site of cohesion and hope rather than conflict or contestation of memory (Mitchell & Elwood, 2013, p. 35).

Figure 8. Garden of Hope mural by the Ardoyne Youth Club, taken by author, May 2022.

Thus, the young people interviewed for this study felt unheard and disconnected. The older generation continuously telling them – ‘you’ve had it easy’ growing up. Yet this younger generation have spent their lives hearing stories of the conflict, seeing, and living through the repercussions of an imperfect peace such as cyclical riots in July, the flag protests in 2012–2013, and riots in 2021. They are living in constant division with a failing government that does nothing to support them in meaningful ways. The ongoing repercussions of a failed GFA have affected the ceasefire generation, as Lyra McKee a young journalist (recently murdered in Derry)²⁷ aptly put it, ‘We were the Good Friday Agreement generation, destined to never witness the horrors of war but to reap the spoils of peace. The spoils just never seemed to reach us.’²⁸ This research has shown that the ceasefire generation are pushing back against the intergenerational memory they have inherited, and their memory activism needs to be incorporated more fully into understandings of memory and space post-conflict.

Conclusion

This article contributes to scholarly debate on the politics of place-based memory in the aftermath of political conflict. The longitudinal view of shifting memory work allowed us to track changes in how memory has been used for various political projects in Ardoyne over a period of 25 years. The signing of the GFA provided the context and dynamics for setting up of the ACP. The motivation of these memory activists was to give centrality to victims’ voices, acknowledgement, and the right to truth and justice. In the intervening years, the public expression of memory has been re-appropriated, reconfigured, and instrumentalized by mainstream republican and ex-prisoner memory activists. Foremost here is recognition of the contribution of republican activists to the political project itself.

Vying for public space and legitimacy, counter-memory claims of dissenting groups collide and compete with mainstream republican messaging, challenging the GFA and Sinn Fein’s political project – a battle over the transition itself. The ongoing failure in relation to establishing an overarching legacy policy provides fertile ground for contestation over memory to thrive. Simultaneously, in this small community, the ceasefire generation’s contemporary socio-economic struggles and ongoing legacies of exclusion and marginalization are starting to layer over these older memories of the past, as they enter the arena as memory activists. Reading across these memory projects at opposite ends of the GFA provides unique insights into the contested and contentious nature of memory ‘post-conflict’, how multiple memory activists battle over narratives of the past, and what drives it. In doing so it fills a gap in the literature regarding intra-communal struggle over memory and the role of place in the aftermath of political conflict. As in other politically divided societies, commemoration serves several functions and speaks to much larger themes than remembrance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eimear Rosato

Eimear Rosato, a PhD candidate in the department of History and School of Irish Studies at Concordia University, Montreal/ Tiohtià:ke, Canada. Originally from Belfast, her research focuses on intergenerational memory in Northern Ireland, using the methodological approaches of Oral History. She is the 2022 inaugural winner of the John and Pat Hume Fellowship in association with ACIS.

Patricia Lundy

Patricia Lundy is Professor of Sociology at Ulster University. Her research has focused on dealing with the legacy of the NI conflict, ‘truth’ recovery, politics of memory, and historical instructional abuse. She has researched both community-based ‘truth’ recovery processes, police-led historical conflict-related investigations, redress, and institutional abuse inquiries. Her work has been published in a wide range of peer-reviewed academic journals; she is recipient of a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship and British Academy Senior Research Fellowship.

Notes

1 NI Statistics and Research Agency – https://www.ninis2.nisra.gov.uk/public/AreaProfileReportViewer.aspx? FromAPAddressMulipleRecords = Ardoyne@Exact%20match%20of%20location%20name:%20@Exact%20Ma tch%20Of%20Location%20Name:%20%20Ardoyne@4?

2 Gilmartin (2022) notes the violence of the 12th to 15th August 1969 witnessed some 3500 families displaced. As the violence intensified in the early 1970s, 11.8% of the population were forced to evacuate their homes in Belfast.

3 The peace lines or peace walls are a series of constructed barriers consisting of walls and gates at interfaces that separate Catholic/nationalist and Protestant/unionist communities.

4 The ACP was criticized for its partiality, that the unionist community in Glenbryn and unionist former Ardoyne residents’ voices were not included. A valid point addressed in a subsequent publication (Lundy & McGovern, 2005, pp. 67–78).

5 The Ulster Special Constabulary, commonly called the "B-Specials" or "B Men" was a quasi-military reserve special police force in NI, disbanded in May 1970. The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. As part of the reform implemented following the GFA, the RUC was renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

6 Interview, memory activist, 10 April 2022.

7 Ex-POW refers to ex-prisoner of war.

8 Interview, memory activist, 10 April 2022.

9 The ABLHA committee was essentially ex-prisoners and republican activists.

10 We could not confirm if the woman’s family requested that her name should not be added to the memorial.

11 Interview with veteran community worker and memory activist, 4 May 2022.

12 Interview with memory activist (and member of ABLHA), 20 May 2022.

13 Interview with memory activist (and member of ABLHA), 20 May 2022.

14 Interview with memory activist (and member of ABLHA), 20 May 2022.

15 Interview with veteran community worker and memory activist, 4 May 2022.

16 Interview with veteran community worker and memory activist, 4 May 2022.

17 Battle over the dead’ is how one republican activist described the contestation over the past between republican mainstream and dissenting groups. Interview, republican memory activist, 29 April 2022.

18 Na Fianna Éireann, was a youth organisation founded by Bulmer Hobson and Countess Markieivicz in 1909. The Fianna, sought to play a part in ‘re-establishing the independence of Ireland through the training of the youth of Ireland, mentally and physically.

19 Interview with memory activist (and member of ABLHA), 20 May 2022; Interview, memory activist, 10 April 2022 and 29 April.

20 http://republicannetwork.org/ideology/

21 The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. As part of the reform implemented following the GFA, the RUC was renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

22 Interview, memory activist (and member of ABLHA), 20 May 2022., 29 April 2022; Interview with memory activist, 4 May 2022.

23 Interview, memory activist (and member of ABLHA), 20 May 2022, 29 April 2022; Interview with memory activist, 4 May 2022.

24 This is an ongoing project which began in 2017 and includes over thirty interviews from the Ardoyne community, participants range in age from those over the age of eighteen (who were born during the peace process, or after the Good Friday Agreement) to those who were born and remember life before the Troubles began.

25 Holy Cross Girls School dispute occurred in 2001–2002 in Ardoyne, North Belfast with members of the Protestant Unionist community of Glenbyrn protesting the Holy Cross Catholic school, claiming that Catholics were attacking their homes. The community tried to prevent the schoolgirls and their parents from walking to school through their area. The PSNI and British army were called in to escort the children and parents each day, the tensions often escalated with sectarian abuse, rocks, urine-filled balloons, and a blast bomb being thrown at the girls and their parents. This continued into 2002 until agreements were reached.

26 https://www.nisra.gov.uk/publications/suicide-statistics-2021

27 Lyra McKee was an investigative journalist who was fatally shot during rioting in the Creggan area of Derry on 18th April 2019.

28 https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/01/conflict-mental-health-northern-ireland-suicide/424683/