It also reveals pretenses that unraveled during the peace process but remain built into the 1998 agreement: (1) the pretence of parity of esteem that assumed the British and Irish govt as neutral arbiters (2) the belief that all suspicious deaths would treated equitably / the same by both govts.

To get such a devastating diagnosis in the direct aftermath of such a joyous event -her second child being born - is shocking enough but even the money of the elite could not halt this awful disease. So tragic and such humanity in her response. RIP, Tatiana. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

Awful the things that were done, it’s amazing the language persisted at all!

I’ve had to stop visiting as i just get enraged everytime i see those exhibitions. I had to argue the case for the Fitz in Cambridge not to ‘contextualise’ Irish coins in an exhibition on countermarked coins with prisoner artefacts (illegally taken by a local regiment) and a bomb disposal unit!

OMG, it’s absolutely wild. And have you ever read about the gun they had on display from an ACTIVE murder inquiry (and weren’t v sorry when they learnt about its context)? V interesting how othered NI was from their sense of ethical responsibility www.bbc.com/news/uk-3291...

Here is David’s paper rgs-ibg.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

And i think this is important for somewhere like Ireland - that relied v heavily on archaeology to create a sense of pre-colonial identity in the push for / aftermath of partial independence - and now sees archaeology being openly used by the Far Right to exclude new migrants and marginalized ids.

Demystifying some of this and placing it in its contemporary context - yes we can say many things about the original builders of newgrange, but we can also say alot more about how it’s been used and imagined since - would do a lot to reveal the politics and changing nature of archaeology.

Much as contemporary commentary revere O’Kelly and his interventions at Newgrange it’s long accepted by most archeologists that many of the reconstructions would be considered to interventionist now and some (quartz walls, anyone) are almost definitely incorrect.

The political use of both Avebury and Newgrange as vehicles of particular forms of national identity have been well explored by David C Harvey & others but it’s only in seeing what these sites looked like prior to heritagization you can really appreciate the ‘archaeological imaginary’.

Ha! I had a mare with saying ‘8’ in Denmark, to the point i’d have to get my husband to say it if i was asked to say anything with that number in it (inc my mobile number). Eventually realized that how Nordies say ‘8’ sounds exactly the same as Danes say ‘1’ (et). V confusing.

Absolutely, the island has a bad problem with facilitated ruin of ‘difficult’ buildings. It’s not even wholeheartedly deciding to completely change or demolish but just letting things lie, half hearted attempts at regeneration, and then pretty much closing them until they fall into themselves.

It’s something i’ve written a little about but the denial of a deep past in places like Belfast - actually, specifically Belfast - not only are not neutral in intent but they have real consequences in terms of facilitating positive changes to place identity through allowing for deeper connections.