Subverting the Irish Border

The formation of the Irish border, through the Civil War and the Troubles, was a cause of conflict in both the domestic and public sphere, through the division of families and continuous changes in ownership over land and properties. This is evident in villages like Belleek, which sit right on the political boundary of present-day Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. An emblem of this period, found in Belleek, is the Belleek Fort.Initially built in the late 1700s for the British Army in the Napoleonic era, it was used as a way of claiming territory by the British and the Irish military and paramilitary forces during the Irish Civil War in

It ended up becoming a home and accommodation in the 1960s. As stated by the Fort’s owner, the Fort “affords an interesting insight to the absurdity of the artificial political boundary that separates the two parts of Ireland.” Thus, my scheme, is a tactile representation of the clash between the military and domestic history of the site. This is represented through light timber elements, inspired by the Hill House Box Museum by Carmody Groarke, which are unimposing to the existing site, and which guide viewers around it in the same way the scaffolding in the Hill House box museum does.

The Fort’s military past is represented and subverted through the textured concrete walls which have been inspired by Rachel Whiteread’s work which focuses on memory and its preservation. The concrete walls are cast to represent textural snapshots of the Fort’s past. Learning from the Mauerpark in Berlin, the Fort’s contested, military past is subverted by becoming a public interface. It facilitates conversations regarding how we deal with the effects of the border, for example, the lost ownership and the dereliction caused by it, and how this can be taken forward in the future. Since the effects of the partition are common in border towns and beyond, the Belleek Fort is inviting to different groups of people who will be able to use the spaces available to hold talks, workshops and meetings and share knowledge and thoughts with each other.

Additionally, the Fort has a residency, inspired by the Landmark trust and taking from the Fort’s previous use as a home and accommodation, where people will be able to stay and experience living inside the Fort while also having the opportunity to discover the village of Belleek as well.