‘Rearranging the ground’:1

1. This phrase is derived from Bondi and Domosh (1992, 211).

public and private space in Belfast, Northern Ireland

Abstract

This article examines imaginings and uses of place in the city of Belfast which challenge the conventionally gendered and sectarian place discourses dominating politics and society in Northern Ireland. These alternative imaginings are articulated in two artworks, ‘Home’, by Mary McIntyre, and ‘Street Signs’, by Aisling O'Beirn. I present readings of these pieces with reference to concepts of public and private which signify through socio-political, geographical and psychological orderings of space. Focusing on the construction of public and private space allows me to approach the issue of sectarian territorialisation in Belfast obliquely, while recognising its physical and psychological potency and the complexity of its operations; further, it facilitates the exploration of how gender and memory are made to matter spatially, in general and specifically in Belfast. This analytical perspective clarifies certain exclusions and oppressions inherent in the framing of space, but also offers understandings of how these may be destabilised, allowing unorthodox or marginal identities and practices to emerge as co-constituents of space.

Este artículo examina los usos e imaginarios del lugar en la ciudad de Belfast que desafían el lugar que tienen los discursos dominantes, sectarios y convencionalmente marcados por el género, en la política y la sociedad en Irlanda del Norte. Estos imaginarios alternativos están articulados en dos piezas de arte, ‘Hogar’, de Mary McIntyre, y ‘Carteles de las calles’, por Aisling O'Beira. Presento lecturas de estas piezas con referencia a conceptos de lo público y lo privado que dan significado a través de ordenamientos sociopolíticos, geográficos y psicológicos del espacio. Centrarme en la construcción del espacio público y privado me permite encarar el tema de la territorialización sectaria en Belfast de forma oblicua, a la vez que reconocer su potencia física y psicológica y la complejidad de sus operaciones; más aún, facilita la exploración de cómo el género y la memoria importan espacialmente en general, y específicamente en Belfast. Esta perspectiva analítica aclara ciertas exclusiones y opresiones inherentes en la contextualización del espacio, pero también ofrece explicaciones de cómo éstas pueden ser desestabilizadas, permitiendo que identidades o prácticas no ortodoxas o marginales surjan como co-constituyentes del espacio.

Keywords:

• public and private space
• public art
• gender
• memory
• sectarian geography

Keywords:

• espacio público y privado
• arte público
• género
• memoria
• geografía sectaria

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Aisling O'Beirn for discussing her intentions in making ‘Street Signs’, and for providing me with images of the piece. I would like to thank Brian Graham, the editor Robyn Longhurst and referees for their remarks on earlier versions of the article.

Notes

1. This phrase is derived from Bondi and Domosh (1992, 211).

2. The terms ‘loyalist’ and ‘republican’ denote the extremes of unionism and nationalism, often separated from their more moderate counterparts by ethos, class and geography. As Karen Lysaght (2005) points out, there is a growing trend amongst men particularly from loyalist housing estates to feel alienated even in public space where unionism is represented, pointing to the socio-cultural and political gulf that can lie between the two political groupings.

3. Article 41, ‘The Family’, in the Constitution of Ireland – Bunreacht na hÉireann. See Republic of Ireland government website: http://www.taoiseach.gov.ie/upload/static/256.pdf.

4. The phase of politico-religious conflict in Northern Ireland which broke out in violence in the late 1960s and continued for some 30 years is popularly referred to as ‘the Troubles’.

5. The symbol of the Red Hand was adopted by the O'Neill family, prominent in the north of Ireland up to the early seventeenth century, when the Ulster plantations eroded their power. The symbol apparently originates in a myth in which two chieftains, rowing in separate boats towards a shore, decide that the man who first lays his hand on the land may claim it as his own. The man whose boat is falling behind then cuts off his hand and throws it to shore ahead of the leading boat, fulfilling the agreement and winning the land. According to the University of Ulster's CAIN website, ‘traditionally, the symbol is that of a [sic] open and upright right hand dripping blood’. Where used symbolically in Northern Ireland today, it signifies loyalist politics and occasionally paramilitarism, mainly in relation to the Ulster Freedom Fighters and Red Hand Commando (see University of Ulster conflict research website: http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/bibdbs/murals/lmural3.htm).

6. Aisling O'Beirn's website: http://www.aislingobeirn.fsnet.co.uk/urban projects.htm.

7. Holy Cross Primary School exists just within the borders of a loyalist enclave of north Belfast, which abuts the predominantly nationalist Ardoyne. The school became the focus of sectarian tensions in the area in the summer of 2001, when Protestant residents of Glenbryn decided to protest what they perceived as a local republican threat by attempting to prevent the Catholic school children and their parents from moving in and out of their territory.

8. In conversation with O'Beirn on 13 March 2003, she mentioned that she would have liked the signs to be installed publicly within the Ardoyne and Bone, but that for various reasons this did not happen. It is also important to note that had they been displayed within Ardoyne and the Bone, it would have been possible to read this as a layering of private imaginings with private space, rather than a juxtaposition of public space and private imaginings, since, as I argued earlier, most working-class housing estates in Belfast constitute semi-private space. However, given the enforcement of consensus and suppression of dissent in terms of identity politics evident in many of these spaces, that temporal and spatial complexity evoked by the signs would still have been a significant intervention in their representation. In 2003 O'Beirn exhibited a similar series in Galway, entitled ‘Home Town Nick Names’. She signposted Lenaboy Avenue as ‘Flea Lane’, its former name, provoking protests from its residents. Since Lenaboy Avenue has become a desirable address, residents evidently had no wish for the area to be labelled with a name hinting at its impoverished and possibly unsanitary past (Blaney 2004, 71). In this case, although the artist wished to represent a hidden microgeography as constitutive of the contemporary space, its inhabitants preferred that imagining to remain hidden because it told a story about the space which to them was incompatible with its contemporary identity. This disagreement reveals the extent to which public art must take into account its audience as well as its geographical context and the significance of spaces to people inhabiting them. It cannot be assumed that only those organisations and individuals most clearly affiliated with the operations of power in public space will object to the revelation of geographic complexity and privileging of marginalised narratives.

9. The Oxford Street bomb detonated in conjunction with 19 other devices, all of which exploded within one hour. Although warned, the police and army were unable to coordinate effective evacuation of the relevant areas, and many people were killed and injured. The day came to be known as ‘Bloody Friday’. In conversation with Philip Orr of the New Ireland Forum at a zero28 event, ‘Revisioning Belfast’, on 28 October 2003, this site was mentioned as being of particular interest in its juxtaposition of traumatic violence and ‘high’ culture. Orr believes that this still-raw conjunction between Belfast's history and current regeneration, and its bloody conflict, provide unparalleled opportunities to analyse the connections between brutality and the expressions of ‘civilised’ culture to be found in cosmopolitan cities throughout the world. The opera houses, theatres and concert halls in Great Britain's cities can be read as being metaphorically founded on violence, the violence necessary in colonies and slave plantations to create the wealth that gave rise to these houses of culture. Belfast's Waterfront Hall has its physical foundations on a site of extreme violence, and its position offers an opening for the interrogation of the connections between the culture of so-called civilised societies, and their cruelty.