Overcoming the Troubles in Westeros: changing perceptions of post-conflict Northern Ireland through the diegetic heritage of Game of Thrones

ABSTRACT

The fantasy series Game of Thrones (GoT) has become a phenomenon that reaches far beyond the television screens. Through extensive on-location filming, the series has linked its diegetic world of Westeros to countless heritage sites across several countries, most prominently Northern Ireland. Through narrative and special effects, GoT has overcoded these landscapes with their on-screen identities leading not only to a surge in tourists who want to travel to fictional locations such as ‘Winterfell’ and ‘King’s Landing’, but also affecting previously established global perceptions and local identities. Previously associated with the heritage of the Northern Ireland conflict, the so-called Troubles, GoT enabled a reimagining of this landscape through popular culture. A multi-sited visual ethnography on the impact of the series on the heritage landscapes of its filming locations reveals that popular culture can create a new heritage – even entirely fictional and one of blood and death itself – that can significantly contribute to overcoming national trauma and memory conflict. This sentiment was especially emphasized by people growing up and living in Northern Ireland, who saw their home’s reputation significantly improved and their new role as ‘Game of Thrones Territory’ as a unifying narrative in an inherently dissonant heritage context.

Resumen

La serie de fantasía Juego de Tronos (conocida en sus siglas en inglés, GoT) se ha convertido en un fenómeno que va mucho más allá de las pantallas de televisión. A través de una extensa filmación insitu, la serie ha vinculado su mundo diegético de Westeros a innumerables sitios patrimoniales en varios países, principalmente en Irlanda del Norte. A través de la narrativa y los efectos especiales, GoT ha sobre codificado estos paisajes con sus identidades en pantalla, lo que lleva no sólo a un aumento de turistas que desean viajar a lugares ficticios como ‘Winterfell’ y ‘King’s Landing’, sino que también afecta las identidades locales y las percepciones globales previamente establecidas. Anteriormente asociado con la herencia del conflicto de Irlanda del Norte, los llamados ‘problemas’, GoT permitió una reinvención de este paisaje a través de la cultura popular. Una etnografía visual en múltiples sitios sobre el impacto de la serie en los paisajes patrimoniales de sus lugares de rodaje revela que la cultura popular puede crear un nuevo patrimonio, incluso completamente ficticio y de sangre y muerte, que puede contribuir significativamente a superar el trauma nacional y la memoria conflictuada. Este sentimiento fue especialmente enfatizado por las personas que crecieron y vivieron en Irlanda del Norte, quienes vieron que la reputación de sus pueblos natales mejoró significativamente y su nuevo papel como ‘territorio’ de Juego de Tronos como una narrativa unificadora en un contexto patrimonial inherentemente disonante.

Résumé

La série fantastique Game of Thrones (GoT) est devenue un phénomène qui va bien au-delà de votre écran de télévision. Avec un nombre impressionnant de lieux de tournage, elle a associé son monde diégétique de Westeros à d’innombrables sites de patrimoine à travers plusieurs pays et plus particulièrement, en Irlande du Nord. Par le biais du récit et d’effets spéciaux, GoT a surcodé ces lieux avec leurs identités à l’écran avec pour résultat non seulement une vague de touristes qui veulent visiter les sites fictifs, par exemple « Winterfell » et « King’s Landing », mais aussi un effet sur les perceptions internationales et les identités locales déjà en existence. Associé auparavant avec l’héritage du conflit de l’Irlande du Nord, aussi appelé « les Troubles », GoT a permis de réimaginer cet environnement à travers la culture populaire. Une ethnographie visuelle pour de multiples emplacements sur l’impact qu’a engendré la série pour les sites patrimoniaux de ses lieux de tournage révèle que la culture populaire peut créer un nouveau patrimoine, qui peut même être complètement fictif et fait de sang et de mort, ce qui peut grandement contribuer à surmonter un traumatisme à l’échelle nationale et un conflit en mémoire. Ce sentiment a été particulièrement évoqué par les personnes qui grandissent et vivent en Irlande du Nord, qui ont vu une amélioration notable de la réputation de leur pays et considèrent leur nouveau rôle de « Territoire de Game of Thrones » comme un discours d’unité au sein d’un contexte de patrimoine fondamentalement discordant.

KEYWORDS:

• diegetic heritage
• heritage tourism
• post-conflict heritage
• popular culture
• imaginary geographies
• place-myths

PALABRAS CLAVE:

• patrimonio diegético
• turismo patrimonial
• patrimonio posconflicto
• cultura popular
• geografías imaginarias
• mitos-lugares

MOTS CLEFS:

• patrimoine diégétique
• tourisme du patrimoine culturel
• patrimoine d’après conflit
• culture populaire
• géographie de l’imaginaire
• lieux mythiques

1. Introduction: Fire and Blood in Northern Ireland

People ask what made these Irish people turn against each other – because we are all Irish. And really, it was all one incident. It was one incident of violence that just divided the whole country. This one incident of violence was so horrific, it split families, it set house against house, town against town and caused wave after wave after wave of violence to come in its wake. And that one original horrific act of violence was, of course, when Joffrey Baratheon cut off Ned Stark’s head.

(Richard, tour guide for Game of Thrones Tours NI, 16.06.2018)

Everyone who participates in Richard’s ‘Iron Islands Tour’ along the Antrim Coast will hear this anecdote. It usually brings the jolly mood of the passengers on the bus to a sudden halt as the passengers anticipate some profound truth to be told, only to be followed by a burst of laughter after this expectation is subverted, something Richard utterly enjoys, he told me. Playing with visitors’ perceptions and preconceptions of Northern Ireland, Richard not only negotiates the troubled past but also the present of his home country. It demonstrates that the memory of the Northern Ireland conflict, the so-called Troubles, is still very much present in the minds of people within and outside the British Isles and is inseparably tied to the narrative of Northern Ireland’s heritage. Conversely, it also illustrates a recent change in narrative, as this particularly dark episode of Ireland’s past almost seamlessly transitions into the story of Game of Thrones (GoT), which has significantly reframed the perception of Northern Ireland over the last decade.

This paper does not intend to assess the origins or lasting societal inequalities of the Northern Ireland conflict (Tonge, 2013), nor evaluate the economic effects of GoT through screen tourism and newly established creative industries (Bolan & Kearney, 2017; Ramsey et al., 2019). Instead, it aims to examine contemporary heritage-making processes through popular culture and visual digital culture, and how these processes make it possible to overcome conflict heritages and negative perceptions. This research illustrates how new heritages created through popular culture and fantasy fiction enable a reimaging and retelling of the dissonant heritage landscape of Northern Ireland which was previously shaped by the heritage of the Troubles and the conflict’s reiteration through so-called ‘dark tourism’ (cf. Light, 2017). Thereby, a multi-sited visual ethnography has been conducted to analyse how GoT has impacted the (self-)perception of a post-conflict Northern Ireland, analysing the heritagisation of the fantasy in the landscape and its reception both locally and globally.

The highly successful television series GoT (2011–2019), based on the books by George R. R. Martin, has become far more than just a television programme. From colloquial expressions such as ‘Winter is coming’, citations in countless other pieces of media to referencing its themes and iconography in social and political debates, the series has become a global pop-cultural phenomenon with an impact far beyond the screen. A large part of its success is attributed to its elaborate worldbuilding, the process of designing ‘imaginary worlds with coherent geographic, social, cultural, and other features’ (von Stackelberg & McDowell, 2015, p. 25). The imaginary world of Westeros and Essos, with its architecture and art, history and tales, religious beliefs and mysticism, customs and costumes, heraldry and iconography, portrays an intricate ‘diegetic heritage’. The term ‘diegetic’ refers to the spatiotemporal world in which a story takes place and is directly experienced and encountered by its characters (Bunia, 2010). While still predominantly used in film music and videogame theory when examining ‘diegetic music’ or ‘diegetic sound’, music and sound that – unlike the score or soundtrack – can be heard by the characters (Berndt, 2011), other features of the internal world of a story can be deemed ‘diegetic’. In the case of GoT the societal and cultural frame of the characters’ lived experiences can be described as ‘diegetic heritage’. However, this highly detailed mediaevalesque fantasy world was projected onto real-world landscapes, most prominently Northern Ireland, Croatia and Spain, overcoding numerous heritage sites with their on-screen identities, and enhancing them with practical and digital effects. Thus, GoT’s diegetic heritage transcended its internal imaginary world and can now be found, experienced, and performed at its filming locations. Places such as Castle Ward (Northern Ireland) and Dubrovnik (Croatia) that stood in for ‘Winterfell’ and ‘King’s Landing’ respectively, have become desired destinations for those who want to experience this imaginary realm for themselves. This popularity led to dedicated tourist experiences and official marketing campaigns by destination management organizations, but also established an entirely new habitus and heritage performance across filming locations such as restaging scenes, wearing costumes, and using digital mapping tools and social media to assert new toponyms and spatial identities (Doppelhofer, 2023).

Despite becoming a prolific field within the last three decades, most research on the impact of film and television on filming locations remains very limited in its approaches and concepts (cf. Connell, 2012; Domínguez-Azcue et al., 2021). This can be illustrated by case studies on GoT filming locations which are, like most other studies on so-called screen tourism, predominantly concerned with questions about how much tourism is ‘induced’ (Bolan & Kearney, 2017; Contu & Pau, 2022), destination marketing (Gómez-Morales et al., 2022; Mitev et al., 2017), tourist motivation (Araújo Vila et al., 2021), and authenticity and visitor experience (Waysdorf & Reijnders, 2017). While existing research on heritage and identity portrayed in popular culture has primarily focussed on reiterations of previous understandings and stereotypes of local, regional, or national imaginaries (e.g. Edensor, 2002; Light, 2012; Orr, 2018; Tzanelli, 2014), the present research examines how a diegetic heritage created through fantasy fiction without any previous spatiotemporal association can enable a reimagination and retelling of a landscape that has been dominated by a heritage narrative of conflict and civil unrest.

2. An Ethnography of Ice and Fire: data and methodology

Data were collected from four months of fieldwork conducted across Northern Ireland between May 2018 and June 2019 as part of a larger transnational visual ethnography on the impact of GoT on heritage landscapes across Northern Ireland, Croatia and Spain (Doppelhofer, 2022). For this contribution, the focus lies firstly on visual and material data such as GoT-related destination marketing efforts, site interpretation, and material culture to illustrate the tangible and intangible manifestations and ‘heritagisation’ of GoT’s fantasy within the Northern Irish landscape (Crang & Cook, 2007), and secondly on interview data to access individuals’ attitudes and values invisible to participant observation (Byrne, 2016). Visual, material, and performative data were documented in fieldnotes, photographs, and video, while interviews were recorded with a dictaphone and transcribed verbatim.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 local heritage and tourism stakeholders, as well as 11 domestic and 51 international (mainly European, North American, Australian) site visitors across Northern Ireland. Site visitors were recruited either singly or in pairs across filming locations by approaching them on the day after they had been observed engaging with anything related to GoT and/or had been identified as domestic tourists, while local heritage and tourism stakeholders were, where possible, contacted in advance via email or social media. Each of them were provided with a project information sheet and a consent form ahead of the interview, ensuring confidentiality and, if requested, anonymity (Doppelhofer & Todd, 2021).

These data were subsequently coded manually and with the data analysis software NVivo 12 to organize and identify patterns and relationships between these different types of qualitative data (Auerbach & Silverstein, 2003; Maher et al., 2018). Two main themes emerged from this research; (1) GoT has become an integral part of the heritage landscape; and (2) a reimagining of post-conflict Northern Ireland.¹

3. Preserving conflict through heritage: the troubles with Troubles tourism

‘History […] is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake’. – Ulysses,Joyce (1922, p. 34)

The Northern Ireland conflict, commonly known as ‘The Troubles’, was an ethnoreligious and political armed conflict between Catholic Irish Republicans and Protestant Loyalists that cost over 3,600 lives and lasted from the late 1960s to the late 1990s (McKittrick & McVea, 2002). The Troubles left behind a heritage landscape full of remnants and imagery of this conflict, such as the infamous ‘peace-lines’ that separated Protestant and Catholic neighbourhoods, as well as political murals and memorials, the latter significantly increasing in number since the Good Friday Agreement in both Loyalist and Republican areas (Viggiani, 2014). These monuments not only shape the landscape, but through their heritagisation they became both sources of local identity and popular tourist attractions that keep the memory of the Troubles tightly anchored in the local and global perception of Northern Ireland.

While there are other divided cities shaped by political and religious conflict, Belfast, according to Brunn et al. (2010), is unique in that there are efforts to actively ‘create a post-conflict image by promoting tourism in areas of previous sharp sectarian conflict’ (p. 89). Already in 1998, the British newspaper The Independent titled ‘The trouble is, tourists are not as interested in the peaceful side of Ulster’ in an article on the emergence of ‘Troubles tourism’ (Atyah, 1998), while a 2001 Belfast City Council Report claimed that 43% of tourists came to Belfast out of curiosity over the Troubles (Wiedenhoft Murphy, 2010, p. 542), illustrating the great appeal the heritage of the Troubles had very early on and confirming Tunbridge and Ashworth’s assessment that ‘atrocity [is] one of the most marketable of heritages’ (Tunbridge & Ashworth, 1996, p. 94). Promoting the heritage of the Troubles also became part of the post-conflict regeneration strategy, utilizing tourism as ‘conflict transformation’ (Crooke & Maguire, 2019). Indeed, both heritage and tourism have often been ascribed reconciliatory properties for emotional, cultural, and economic healing for post-conflict societies (Hisari et al., 2022; Reddy et al., 2020). Various organizations and scholars have subscribed to the post-conflict ‘healing-heritage model’, using the ‘”good” deep past’ to mend the ‘”bad” recent past and present’, hoping to create ‘social cohesion and economic development’ (Giblin, 2014, p. 509). In what Causevic and Lynch (2008) call ‘phoenix tourism’, they argue that using conflict heritage for tourism can be part of conflict transformation. Naming post-Troubles Belfast as prime example, Causevic and Lynch (2008) claim that employing conflict heritage can assist in social and economic reconciliation, regeneration and reimagination, as well as rebuilding a sense of pride and community after long-term political conflict.

However, using the term ‘post-conflict’ is itself a problematic description, as conflict in so-called ‘post-conflict societies’ is often anything but resolved (Giblin, 2014, p. 503). Often it is the heritage of certain groups within a society that causes conflict. Therefore, it is increasingly questioned whether the strategy of using tourism and heritage to transform ‘swords into ploughshares’ can actually work (Cochrane, 2015, p. 52), or whether it further entrenches these dissonances and fosters divisions of sectarianism that caused the conflict in the first place. As early as the 1990s, Hall (1994) described how the presumption of tourism as ‘a force for peace is [a] gross simplification of [its] political dimensions’ (p. 91). Similarly, the idea that heritage is a positive force for well-being and peace is an overly simplistic, if not naïve, assumption. Heritage is a marker of identity and thus, by its very nature, exclusionary and dissonant, as it divides between ‘us’ und ‘them’ (Tunbridge & Ashworth, 1996). This becomes particularly apparent in intra-national conflicts when both heritage communities continue to live side by side, best illustrated in ‘post-conflict’ Northern Ireland.

Rather than resolving and leaving conflict behind, the heritagisation and subsequent commodification of the Troubles through erecting more monuments and presenting them through tourism reproduces and entrenches the territoriality and symbolically perpetuates the conflict, transforming them into a conflict through other means (McDowell & Braniff, 2014; McDowell, 2008). Heritage performances such as the creation of new memorials and commemorations are not meant for reconciliatory purposes but to demarcate territorial claims and to express and reify competing identities, even to actively provoke, and thus continue and transform violent conflict into symbolic conflict (McEvoy, 2011; Viejo-Rose, 2011). Instead of growing together, two mutually exclusive parallel heritage landscapes have established themselves side by side. The ‘peace-lines’, unlike the Berlin Wall, have never been torn down and remain a dividing feature between neighbourhoods (Brunn et al., 2010, p. 91). Crossing them still feels like a forbidden, transgressive act.

This conflict is disseminated locally and globally through Troubles tourism. As one of the world’s leading industries and often first and only point of contact with foreign peoples and heritages, ‘tourism exerts a powerful force on how countries are imagined globally’ (Rivera, 2008, pp. 617–618). Media and tourism are highly influential in constructing particular gazes by creating, shaping and projecting signs and imaginaries onto places and continuously inscribing them with new place-myths ‘regardless of their character in reality’ (Shields, 1991, pp. 60−61; cf. Urry & Larsen, 2011). The images and place-myths created through decades of media coverage of the conflict and subsequent promotion and practice of Troubles tourism created and, more importantly, sustained the perception that the Northern Ireland conflict is yet to be resolved. McDowell (2008) noted that rather than overcoming divisions, there is an ‘eagerness to both Republican and Loyalist communities to compete for the attention and sympathies of the tourist’ (p. 412). They try to direct the tourist gaze ‘upon conflict heritage through a carefully mediated lens that frames a particular narrative’ to compete for hegemony over victimhood and moral high ground, refuting their respective roles at the expense of the other (Graham & Whelan, 2007, p. 493). Murals, monuments and plaques are used as evidence to develop blame-narratives and to ‘promote one-sided and deliberately partial memories of the conflict that reflect longstanding and ongoing segregation’ (McAtackney, 2015, p. 116). When being guided by an outspoken Republican through West Belfast, I could not escape siding unequivocally with his side of the narrative. Against my own better judgement and even my guide’s self-admitted bias, his personal stories told in front of the Clonard Martyrs Memorial, murals and the Milltown Cemetery left not a shred of doubt in me that there was only one side to blame and only one ‘real victim’. The infamous Black Taxis, once the ‘people’s taxis’ in lieu of the suspended public transport in West Belfast, have become one of the main attractions through which tourists can ‘experience’ the landscape of the Troubles (Wiedenhoft Murphy, 2010, p. 551). Often manned by former ex-militia and convicts of both sides, they have become literal vehicles through which conflict heritage is produced, manipulated, and sold to tourists. By presenting a divided streetscape and constructing symbols of division, the visitor is reminded that ‘the conflict is never far away’ (McDowell, 2008, p. 419). Reproducing the collective memory of conflict through tourism and perpetuating it symbolically both abroad and at home, Troubles tourism is fostering the perception that the conflict is incumbent, requiring but a spark – say, a hard border post-Brexit – for an immediate and inevitable return to violence of the ‘powder-keg Northern Ireland’.

Due to this single-identity work and the economic dependency of sustaining each community’s conflict heritage spaces and narratives, divisions are reified and formalized, thus failing not only to improve inter-community relations but inadvertently selling tourists the perception of the Northern Irish landscape as a series of mutually exclusive Republican and Loyalist spaces and heritages. Ultimately, Graham and Whelan (2007) conclude, that the heritage of Northern Ireland is largely irreconcilable as it is inherently dissonant and unfit as a unifying force. Local authorities have since attempted to re-imagine Northern Ireland through the creation of new heritage spaces, focussing on the de-politicization of the landscape by ‘replac[ing] ethnocratic or ethno-nationalist markers of identity with those of “normal” capitalist space’ through gentrification, most notably the old shipyards that have been transformed into the ‘Titanic Quarter’ (Graham & Nash, 2006, p. 261). Nevertheless, considering the shipyards’ history of employment discrimination, the rather unceremonious fate of both the Titanic and Belfast’s maritime industry, and Titanic Quarter’s geographically limited extent, this project did little to reimagine Northern Ireland (Johnson, 2014).

However, in 2011 the world was introduced to a new and exciting perspective to view Northern Ireland. The mighty Winterfell, the stormy Iron Islands, the vast grasslands of the Dothraki Sea and the icy lands beyond the Wall, all can be found within the borders of Northern Ireland. Following Rojek (1997), who argues that ‘myth and fantasy play an unusually large role in the social construction of tourist sights’ (p. 53), the case of GoT illustrates that fictions can become as much part of a landscape’s heritage as historic events. The diegetic heritage of Westeros – ironically a world famous for its violence and conflict – finally enabled a full reimagining of the previously troubled landscape of Northern Ireland by offering a new, unifying heritage narrative detached from the ‘burden of history’ (Osborn, 2000).

4. The diegetic heritage of Westeros in Northern Ireland

Game of Thrones® has truly become part of Northern Ireland’s heritage and culture.

(‘Game of Thrones Tapestry’ Exhibition, Ulster Museum, 2017)

Northern Ireland, in many ways, has become synonymous with Game of Thrones. Not only did Belfast serve as production headquarters for the entire eight seasons (2011–2019), but over 63 different locations across the country were used to portray countless places of Westeros (Robbie Boake, Supervising Locations Manager for GoT in Northern Ireland, 14.09.2018). Since then, the diegetic heritage of GoT has become omnipresent across Northern Ireland, both tangibly and intangibly through new material culture, site interpretation, marketing, guided tours and tourist performances. From around 2014 onwards, numerous GoT locations tours started to emerge to cater to an increasing number of fans who wanted to travel through the fictional world they have come to know and love from their television screens. Across Northern Ireland, several highly elaborate experiences have been developed that promise to take visitors to the ‘real Westeros’ on fully immersive experiences guided by former extras, meeting Thor and Odin – the dogs that played the ‘direwolves’ in the series² – and dressing up as either ‘Stark Bannermen’ or ‘Ironborn’ at significant filming locations (Figure 1). Furthermore, many local shops have started to sell either officially licenced merchandise or locally crafted products with illustrious, GoT-inspired names such as ‘Lannister Gold Mead’ or ‘A Game of Drones' honey, while pubs and restaurants serve food and drinks that bear reference to the series. Before the pandemic, according to Tourism Northern Ireland’s 2019 Annual Report, around 350,000 visitors – or a sixth of all leisure tourists – annually came to Northern Ireland solely due to GoT, bringing more than ‘£50 m+ economic benefit’ to the country (Tourism NI, 2020).

Figure 1. GoT experiences and souvenirs across Northern Ireland. Meeting the Direwolves (left); GoT tour at Ballintoy Harbour (top middle), ‘A Game of Drones’ honey (bottom middle) and GoT souvenirs (right).

This success can be partly attributed to the elaborate marketing efforts undertaken by Northern Ireland. Between 2014 and 2019, the Northern Ireland Screen and Tourism Ireland created annual destination marketing campaigns for the release of each season. Trying to emulate famous examples such as New Zealand’s branding as ‘Home of Middle-earth’ following the success of The Lord of the Rings (Croy, 2010) and further linking real and fantasy landscapes, Northern Ireland proclaimed itself ‘Game of Thrones Territory’ (Judith Webb, Head of Screen Tourism at Tourism NI, 14.09.2018). For example, Belfast International Airport welcomed arrivals for several years with posters of filming locations stating ‘Westeros is here!’ and was even temporarily re-named to ‘Westeros Airport’ in 2017 (Belfast Telegraph, 2017). Across almost all publicly accessible filming locations, interpretation boards have been placed, making GoT a permanent, tangible part of the site interpretation. A filming locations map and an accompanying app not only link all sites together but make it possible to view and navigate the entire Northern Irish landscape through a ‘Westeros lens’, reinforcing the perception that its diegetic heritage is indeed part of the physical landscape (Figure 2). More than just a creative way of destination marketing and a means to generate income through tourism, inscribing these imaginaries onto the landscape created novel ways of reading and engaging with the heritage of Northern Ireland.

Figure 2. Map of ‘Game of Thrones Territory’, showing filming locations, 'Doors of Thrones' and 'Game of Thrones Tapestry' (left); interpretation boards at Ballintoy Harbour (right top) and Portstewart (right bottom).

Similarly, heritage sites started to acknowledge and adopt their new fictional identity, most notably the previously little-known National Trust property Castle Ward, which became one of the prime destinations for GoT fans from across the world. In the series, the late 16^th century tower house Old Castle Ward and the adjacent small historic farmyard on the shores of Strangford Lough has been transformed into the mighty fortress of Winterfell, the ancestral home of House Stark and capital of the North of Westeros, one of the main locations of the series. Winterfell, although stripped of its CGI in real-life, can be seen, heard, and indeed felt, all around (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Becoming Winterfell. Old Castle Ward (top left) and Winterfell (bottom left, screenshot from GoT S01E01); signpost directing to ‘Winterfell’ (top right); family engaging in GoT activity (bottom right).

The management of Castle Ward put up signposts to guide visitors to ‘Winterfell’, released a filming locations map, opened a GoT merchandise shop in one of their historic farmyard buildings and offers ‘Thrones and Tower Tours’ to tell Castle Ward’s story through GoT. For three consecutive years (2016–2018), Castle Ward has also been the venue of the ‘Winterfell Festival’. Part Renaissance fair, part fan convention, it attracted up to three thousand GoT enthusiasts from near and far. The private company ‘Winterfell Tours’ is offering costumed archery, self-guided bicycle tours within the demesne, and excursions to other nearby locations. Google Maps even displays ‘Winterfell Castle & Demesne’ as an attraction, describing it as a ‘famed ancient castle on scenic grounds’ (cf. Doppelhofer, 2023, p. 97–98). In the eyes of the site management and fans alike, Old Castle Ward is almost a spiritual place, the place where the ‘real’ Winterfell is located and ‘where it all began’ (General Manager Winterfell Tours from Northern Ireland, Castle Ward, 30.06.2018). Sarah Sharp, visitor experience manager of Castle Ward, proudly proclaimed:

We are Winterfell! We need to own that and say, ‘This is actually us!’

(Sarah Sharp from England, Castle Ward 14.06.2018)

However, GoT not only reimagined ‘old’ heritage. Under the ‘Game of Thrones Territory’ brand, the last three seasons were accompanied by the creation and public display of new cultural artefacts made in, or at least paying tribute to, traditional, historic crafts such as wood carving, weaving and stained-glass making while utilizing the iconography of GoT. These include the ‘Doors of Thrones’ (2016), the ‘Game of Thrones Tapestry’ (2017–2019) and the ‘Glass of Thrones’ (2019), all of which have become heritage sites in their own right (Figure 4). These objects have fused the iconography of GoT even further with the heritage landscape and narrative of Northern Ireland. The 2016 ‘Doors of Thrones’ literally transformed parts of a Northern Irish heritage site into a GoT related attraction. Standing in for the ‘Kingsroad’, the Dark Hedges, an 18^th century beech tree avenue in Antrim, has become one of the most iconic filming locations and subsequently one of Northern Ireland’s main attractions. When Storm Gertrude fell several of the over 200-year-old beech trees in January 2016, their wood was salvaged and carved into ten doors, each visually telling the story of an episode of Season 6 and hung across pubs and restaurants close to filming locations across Northern Ireland. They soon became so popular that they have become their own attraction including a passport to collect stamps, verifying, and authenticating the visit. In 2019, the ‘Glass of Thrones’ windows, six medieval-style painted glass windows, have been integrated into the urban heritage landscape of Belfast, being placed on a path between Belfast City Hall and the Titanic Slipway.

Figure 4. The material culture of GoT. ‘Game of Thrones Tapestry’ in the Ulster Museum (top left); ‘Glass of Thrones’ #6 on the Titanic Slipway (bottom left); three of the ‘Doors of Thrones’ (The Dark Horse, Belfast; ‘Owen’s Bar, Limavady; Blakes of the Hollow, Enniskillen’) and the author’s fully stamped passport (right).

The ‘Game of Thrones Tapestry’ is an 87-metre-long, hand-stitched retelling of the entire series in the style of the Bayeux-Tapestry and was exhibited several times in Belfast’s Ulster Museum (National Museums Northern Ireland) between 2017 and 2022. It was woven with 19^th century Jaquard looms used during the prime of the Northern Irish linen industry and the panels portraying the episodes of the last two seasons have been hand-stitched in the gallery for visitors to observe the process (Valerie Wilson from Belfast, Curator of Textiles NMNI, Cultra 20.04.2019). The tapestry became a tangible manifestation of centuries-old traditions and changing industries made relevant again through popular culture, interweaving Northern Ireland and GoT in every imaginable way. It also evoked a strong sense of ownership among the local population. The curator of the exhibition reported of an encounter with a man from Belfast who could not thank her enough for creating and exhibiting this artefact:

He said, ‘I’m so glad the museum has done this. […] This is ours now, isn’t it? This belongs to Belfast?’ […] People locally have taken ownership of other aspects of the Game of Thrones programme; I think they’re feeling the same way now about the tapestry.

(Valerie Wilson from Belfast, Cultra 20.04.2019)

The ‘Game of Thrones Tapestry’ attracted more visitors than any previous temporary exhibition (Pamela Baird, Head of Strategic Research & Planning NMNI, 20.02.2019) and became a much-requested item, most notably from Bayeux, which exhibited this pop-cultural re-imagining next to the medieval original in 2019. The Chief Executive of the NMNI, Kathryn Thomson, calls these artefacts not only ‘heritage assets’, but also sees them as present and future representations of Northern Ireland:

The tapestry may be a new thing today, but in 100 years – like the Titanic story in Belfast – the tapestry will allow us to tell the story of the screen industry in Northern Ireland, the growth of the creative industries, how that shaped the city.

(Kathryn Thomson from Northern Ireland, Cultra 21.06.2019)

These GoT artefacts, and in turn GoT itself, have been incorporated into the official national narrative and heritage canon by being exhibited in the national museum and being treated as public monuments. GoT’s status is thereby elevated above a mere commodity, transforming it into a representation of the nation and its history and therefore, an essential part of Northern Ireland’s identity and perception. By becoming a sought-after loan and a means to ‘highlight the centuries-old links between Normandy and Ireland [and their] shared linen heritage’ (Kathryn Thompson, Cultra 21.06.2019), the ‘Game of Thrones Tapestry’ is acting as a cultural ambassador and represents Northern Ireland abroad as ‘Game of Thrones Territory’ (cf. Knowles, 2011). The claim made by the NMNI exhibition that ‘Game of Thrones has truly become part of Northern Ireland’s heritage and culture’ is not an overstatement.

5. From West Belfast to Westeros

People come here all the time and go ‘Is the Troubles still on?’ and I’m like, ‘That was like 30 years ago!’ […] Even though it was 30 years ago, people still have that [perception] of us. […] I feel like Game of Thrones has offered a new aspect for people that feel that we’re still in a war-torn country.

(General Manager Winterfell Tours from Northern Ireland, Castle Ward 30.06.2018)

Even years after the ceasefire and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, there are still security concerns due to the negative image through three decades of violence. This perception has re-emerged due to Brexit and still unresolved issues surrounding the border with the Republic of Ireland. Sarah Sharp, originally from England and now working for the National Trust in Northern Ireland, remembers:

If you heard Northern Ireland, all you ever saw was balaclavas, guns, bombs. When I first said to my friends and family [that] I was even coming over here on holiday over 16 years ago, they were like ‘why would you want to go there? They’d just kill you!’

(Sarah Sharp from England, Visitor Experience Manager, Castle Ward 14.06.2018)

A young Irish man from Dublin admitted that until recently the ‘bad image of fighting going on up there’ has ‘put [him] off from coming to Northern Ireland – especially with a Southern accent you might just get in trouble’ (Oisin from Ireland, 32, Dark Hedges 21.06.2018). However, even though growing up with these images in mind, being now exposed to the reimagined landscapes of Northern Ireland via GoT, transformed this negative perception, and enabled him and many others to look beyond the dark heritage of the Troubles, showcasing the beauty and peace that were previously hidden behind a curtain of violence undistorted from negative coverage:

It lets you see how beautiful the actual country is, all the different locations. I think when Northern Ireland was publicised with all the bombings and fighting and stuff, you don’t get to see the beauty of the actual country.

(Laura-Lee from Australia, 34, Castle Ward 21.06.2018)

For Gareth and Rona from Scotland, it signalled the end of the conflict and the realization that there are other aspects to this country:

Gareth: Game of Thrones has exposed me and a lot of other people to find that it is safe to travel to Northern Ireland. It’s a beautiful country.Rona: [I am] a bit more aware that the Troubles have ended […]. And now you realise it’s a peaceful place with all these big Hollywood productions here.

(Gareth and Rona from Scotland, Belfast 13.06.2018)

This change of perception was particularly pronounced by most locals I met. When talking with locals about how they feel about GoT’s impact on Northern Ireland, I was almost always met with a sigh of relief and they would instantly highlight ‘the fact that Northern Ireland is being talked about for something other than the Troubles’ (Moyra Lock from Belfast, Head of Marketing Northern Ireland Screen, Belfast 19.06.2018). It was pointed out on numerous occasions that ‘after all the problems that Northern Ireland had, it’s marvellous that something good came along so tourists actually want to come and see the place’ (Jennifer from County Antrim, 64, Ballintoy Harbour 24.06.2018). Helen, even more explicitly, expressed that ‘it took away the Troubles’ (Helen from Northern Ireland, Castle Ward 17.09.2018). For some, it provides a new basis to finally move away from the negative image of the Troubles, as has been described by a young couple from Antrim who themselves had visited the Dark Hedges for the first time due to the increased interest from GoT. They thought that this new perception might enable new perspectives not only for other people to see Northern Ireland, but also to move forward as a society.

Louis: Obviously a lot of things are about the Troubles and black tourism in Northern Ireland. I think it’s really nice to have something fresh. Because obviously that’s all we are known for.Megan: It’s a new perspective for people to see us.Louis: Moving on, away from that dark period of people being angry. You know, moving into a more mixed society, different perceptions.

(Louis and Megan from County Antrim, both 23, Dark Hedges 24.06.2018)

The shift from Troubles to GoT can even be illustrated by one of Northern Ireland’s most iconic tourist offers, the Black Taxis. In recent years, many Black Taxi tour providers expanded their offer along the Antrim coast and other points of interest connected to GoT. By loosening their territorial ties from their original context of West Belfast to the imaginary land of Westeros, they too have been increasingly depoliticized and presenting a wider landscape rather than a narrow, political snapshot. This depoliticizing of the Northern Irish landscape and its heritage has also been emphasized by pub-owner Caroline McErlean. She pointed out how GoT created a unifying, depoliticized narrative that ‘crosses boundaries’ of old entrenched divisions:

It’s a common denominator that the people in Northern Ireland talk about now. You know, it’s another focus. It’s not political. And everybody knows about it. Everybody has somebody who’s been involved in it at some level. Our two boys were extras in the show. And this year, our youngest fellow was body double of Gendry. […] There’s employment now, there’s diversity, there’s a story, there’s excitement around it.

(Caroline McErlean from County Down, owner of The Cuan, Strangford 18.06.2018)

One of the key words utilized when asking locals about their feeling towards GoT was ‘pride’. Pride for the ‘recognition’ of their home by the world (Damien from County Derry/Londonderry, Limavady 20.06.2018), pride that ‘such a big phenomenon […] has been filmed here’ (Kevin from County Down, Strangford 18.06.2018), and pride that their country is ‘famous for something so positive’ and Northern Ireland is now able to ‘show it off’ to the world (Richard from County Down, Bangor 07.05.2019). This pride and newfound confidence about their home country has been enthusiastically expressed by Moyra Lock, Head of Marketing at the NI Screen:

It’s a complete transformation. That is no exaggeration. You know, ten years ago, Northern Ireland was not the second cousin. We were the third, fourth, fifth, two times removed. We weren’t talked to, too far away, regional, parochial, too small, couldn’t do this, couldn’t do that. […] We can do anything now! […] We’re as good as anybody else!

(Moyra Lock, Belfast 19.06.2018)

Several local informants were particularly proud how GoT enabled Northern Ireland to once again live up to its legacy as an industrial heartland, now as a centre of new screen and media industries, however, without the discriminatory employment policies of old. Where once the Titanic had been built and linen mills produced cloth, there are now studios in which large-scale Hollywood productions are made. This has even been monumentalized by placing the sixth and final ‘Glass of Thrones’ window next to the new film studios at the end of the Titanic Slipway with Samson and Goliath, the monumental yellow gantries of the old shipyards, and the Titanic Experience behind it (cf. Figure 4). Valerie Wilson, who grew up in Belfast, described her feelings towards the change GoT brought to her home:

What it has done for Northern Ireland is incredible. Because, when I was growing up in Belfast, from where my bedroom window was, I could look down where those big cranes are and where the shipyard was. And then during the Troubles all declined. And I just think it’s fabulous now, I drive down to work and what I’m seeing is the Painthall [note: film studios on the site of the old shipyard] and this kind of phoenix rising from something that was very bad. So, it has done so much good for everyone. And I feel if it has opened people’s eyes to come to Northern Ireland.

(Valerie Wilson, Cultra 30.04.2019)

Although the so-called ‘Game of Thrones effect’, the knock-on effect the screen industry supposedly has on the economic growth of Northern Ireland, has recently been critically scrutinized and deemed overstated (Ramsey et al., 2019; cf. NI Screen, 2018), the local population’s perception of its effect has been mostly positive and seen as a way forward. Richard described the economic impact as ‘unfathomable’ when talking about how many people have financially profited from GoT either through working on the production itself or the subsequent screen and tourism industry:

There has been a running joke for a lot of years now, that there’s not a person left in Northern Ireland that hasn’t benefited a pound off Game of Thrones in some way, shape or form. […] It’s certainly helped with just letting everything filter away. There’s better things to do. It certainly can be part of what propels us forward.

(Richard, Bangor 07.05.2019)

The only issue about the reimagining of Northern Ireland that has been raised repeatedly by several informants was overtourism attributed to the additional exposure through GoT along the Antrim Coast, a fate shared with other prominent filming locations such as Dubrovnik. However, while the local population of Dubrovnik has been particularly conflicted that its reimagining as ‘King’s Landing’ overshadowed the heritage of the Republic of Ragusa (Doppelhofer, 2023), ‘complaints’ by Northern Irish locals were few and trivial at best. For example, a geologist I met, unsurprisingly, was disappointed that everyone appears only to have eyes for GoT when the rock formations and geological features of the Antrim Coast are so much more interesting. And Damien, owner of Owens’ Bar in Limavady, wished the house a few metres down the street would get as much attention as his ‘Door of Thrones’ – it is the place where the famous song ‘Danny Boy’ had been written.

6. ‘Views to die horribly for’: between constructive amnesia and palimpsestic heritage

Creating new place-myths through popular culture such as GoT’s imaginary realm can do more than supplement previous (mis)conceptions; it can reshape them. The reimagining of Northern Ireland through the diegetic heritage of GoT and the resulting screen and tourism industries could indeed be the necessary shift from ‘destructive remembrance to constructive amnesia’ (Longley, 2001, p. 253) that is required to move on as a society and create new, unifying narratives. It has been argued that the process of heritage- and community-building is often ‘as much about forgetting the past as commemorating it’ (Graham, 2000, p. 77). ‘Constructive amnesia’ should not be confused with forgetting past wrongs and present-day inequalities, but as a basis for a cross-communal narrative and an alternative common identity. GoT’s diegetic heritage has provided such a new narrative that is not tied to the Troubles or any other dissonant heritage that might be engrained in the Northern Irish landscape, even if it is one entirely based on fiction:

If it takes a TV show, a made-up, fictional land to highlight the beautiful areas here that aren’t peace-walls and graffiti and bombs and all of that, then I am all for it. […] Because it is showing some of the best and most beautiful things that we have in Northern Ireland.

(Sarah Sharp, Castle Ward 14.06.2018)

This wish for such ‘constructive amnesia’ was highlighted by several local informants. Paul, a local photographer, pointed out that ‘there’s a whole generation who doesn’t have any historical memory of [the Troubles]’ (Paul from Antrim, Ballintoy Harbour, 01.07.2018). Similarly, Richard quoted his son who sees a hinderance in clinging on to this past conflict, as it is ‘ancient history that has nothing to do with [them], that stops [them] from being European, global people’ (Richard, Bangor 09.05.2019). For most who grew up post-Good Friday Agreement, the Troubles appear to be almost as mythical and fictional as the world of Westeros, more an obstacle to their identity than being part of it.

Some might argue that this reimagining of the Northern Irish landscape through popular culture might overshadow and trivialize its ‘real’ heritage or, even worse, whitewash the troubled past and present-day issues and see it as part of the neoliberal commodification of Northern Ireland (e. g. Kelly, 2012; Ramsey, 2013). However, the heritage of the Troubles and its political and economic exploitation through tourism and bargaining chip in Brexit negotiations has not only commodified and entrenched collective trauma, but it also created an all-encompassing image of Northern Ireland as an intrinsically violent and undesirable space, making conflict its one defining feature. In contrast, the reimagining through GoT and experiencing Northern Ireland through a ‘Westeros lens’ has opened its heritage landscapes for multiple readings, showcasing its plurality and beauty, rather than perpetuating the conflict.

Although the palimpsestic nature of places, spaces and heritage landscapes has long been acknowledged and shown that heritage is a continuously expanding assemblage (cf. Crang, 1996; Macdonald, 2009; Smith, 2006), the case of GoT and its filming locations demonstrates how modern popular culture has immensely accelerated these processes of adding new layers of meaning and engagement onto heritage landscapes. Once a story has attached itself firmly to a place through visual, performative or narrative repetition, it is difficult, if not impossible, to remove it – ‘places remember’ and retain traces of what happened there (Orley, 2012). Whether those layers are ‘old’ or ‘new’, ‘local’ or ‘global’, ‘imagined’ or ‘real’, ‘intentional’ or ‘incidental’ is not of importance to be considered heritage. As soon as a heritage claim is made, used for a new purpose or a new narrative, another layer is added to the palimpsest while the traces of all previous iterations remain.

The power of this reimagination of Northern Ireland is distilled in one particular destination marketing poster. It shows a picturesque vista of the rocky coastal landscape of Larrybane and a tagline written in the iconic GoT font reading ‘Views to die horribly for’ (Figure 5). Only a few years earlier, it would have been unthinkable to promote Northern Ireland with such a slogan without immediately evoking memories of the Troubles. While one could still not imagine seeing the slogan superposed onto an image of Falls Road or Shankill Road, it has become perfectly acceptable for the rural landscape of Northern Ireland. This should not be perceived as the entrenchment of a dichotomy of the Northern Irish landscape between the troubled urban and scenic rural, but rather a rebalancing of heritage narratives where one does not outshine the other and diversifies the ways the landscape can be read. Even Belfast’s perception has benefitted from this shift in focus, thanks to its role as production headquarters of GoT and the creation of new, historically unburdened public monuments such as the ‘Glass of Thrones’ windows and the ‘Game of Thrones Tapestry’, making the Troubles but one of many aspects of Northern Ireland’s palimpsestic landscape. Or, as a young American man I encountered at Castle Ward and who had both partaken in a Black Taxi and a GoT tour described to me:

Figure 5. Destination marketing poster photographed in Belfast.

Before I thought of the Troubles, which was kind of reinforced because we took a Troubles tour too. But no, now [Northern Ireland] is also beautiful castles and scenery. And the people are pretty nice.

(Brent from the U.S.A, Castle Ward, 30.06.2018)

7. Conclusion: A Dream of Spring in Northern Ireland?

This article illustrates how popular culture has become a significant factor in not just representing but indeed making of heritages. Heritage is still often falsely equated with deep pasts and geographical cohesion, however, the case of Northern Ireland’s reimagination as ‘Game of Thrones Territory’ illustrates that heritage-making is always a contemporary process that is continuously renegotiated to serve contemporary needs (cf. Doppelhofer, 2023; Smith, 2006; Tzanelli, 2014). In the case of Northern Ireland, creating new place-myths through GoT’s imaginary realm can therefore supplement or even reshape previous (mis)conceptions and help to overcome collective trauma and dissonant heritage.

In Northern Ireland, an internally divided community has produced a divided heritage landscape that kept the underlying divisions and conflicts in the present (Crooke & Maguire, 2019; McAtackney, 2015; McDowell & Braniff, 2014). However, projecting the diegetic heritage of GoT onto Northern Ireland has tremendously impacted perceptions of this landscape, both for visitors and locals alike. Previously predominantly associated with civil unrest and violent conflict, which was further reiterated through a promotion of Troubles tourism (Wiedenhoft Murphy, 2010), the pop-cultural reimagination has significantly improved the country’s real-life reputation, thus, not only helping to overcome negative associations but build new positive heritage narratives. The de-nationalized and de-politicized diegetic heritage of ‘Game of Thrones Territory’ was finally able to provide a new framing, a change in (self-)perception and a unifying narrative for Northern Ireland, something the available national heritages were incapable of due to their intrinsic dissonant and exclusive nature (cf. Graham & Whelan, 2007). Whether this new heritage is truly reconciliatory remains to be seen. However, this case study shows how new unifying heritage narratives and alternative readings of landscapes can be asserted through a shared global media culture, detached from exclusionary identity markers.

Although questions of longevity remain, the diegetic heritage of GoT appears to continue to be part of the perception of Northern Ireland and thus part of its palimpsestic heritage. Indeed, although winter had come for tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic, since spring of 2022, Westeros appears to blossom again. While marketing campaigns have moved on from presenting Northern Ireland as ‘Game of Thrones Territory’, GoT is still almost as omnipresent in Northern Ireland as it was in pre-pandemic times. Large groups of costumed fans keep roaming the landscape, as indicated by daily social media posts by various GoT tour providers. GoT interpretation boards are still present at filming locations and fictional toponyms such as Pyke, Winterfell, or the Kingsroad for Ballintoy Harbour, Old Castle Ward, and the Dark Hedges remain popular descriptors and geotags on platforms such as Instagram. The ‘Game of Thrones Studio Tour’ in Banbridge opened in spring 2022 (although with two years delay) and the ‘Game of Thrones Tapestry’ being yet again exhibited in the Ulster Museum just in time for the premiere of the new prequel series House of the Dragon in summer of 2022. All this illustrates the resilience and continuing influence of GoT’s diegetic heritage on the Northern Irish landscape.

The production of the prequel series House of the Dragon might have changed its headquarters from Belfast to London and set out to conquer new territories with its imagination, however, as the tour guide Richard pointed out, ‘the words Belfast, Game of Thrones, and Northern Ireland will always be linked. And that’s a very positive thing’.

Acknowledgments

I want to thank all my participants for taking part in this research – this article and indeed my PhD would not have been possible without them. I also want to express my gratitude to my supervisors for guiding me throughout my research as well as Alex Hastie and Robert Saunders for inviting me to contribute to this special issue. Many thanks to the editor David Bissell and the three anonymous reviewers whose comments and input elevated this paper significantly. Lastly, I want to thank Leslie Quade for her encouragement, support, and proofreading.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

This research was generously supported by the Durham Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship in Visual Culture.

Notes

1. Although these data and subsequent analyses are based on pre-COVID-19 observations and responses, the overall conclusions remain valid as they are indicators of larger socio-cultural trends in the creation and performance of heritage through popular culture and visual digital culture independent from this specific case study. In some cases, such as the question of lasting impact, the re-emergence of GoT tourism after the pandemic-induced forced hiatus has even strengthened certain claims.

2. Tours with the ‘direwolves’ have been phased out in 2020 due to the death on one of the dogs, the advancing age of the other and the disruptions of the pandemic.