IN-PERSON Barcelona. Section B

Abstract

Placenames have long played a significant role in the cultural landscape of the island of Ireland and street and neighbourhood names (townlands), have a continued heightened significance in a city like Belfast (Béal Feirste) with its contested identities. Placenames often serve as boundary markers and some have become stigmatised as the names of neighbourhoods associated with violent conflict. This paper explores the ways in which the place-names of Belfast can be classified as intangible cultural heritage that is contested, but which also has the power to shape narratives about the city and its identity. It looks at how the intangible linguistic heritage of placenames intersects with the physical heritage of the distinctive black-tiled Belfast street sign and its contemporary descendants, a combination that acts as a portal to the Irish and Ulster Scots languages in the city. We will explore how the continued production of urban placenames frames the intangible cultural heritage of the city, through, for example, the naming of new quarters, such as the Titanic Quarter and the Gaeltacht Quarter, pointing to aspects of Belfast’s cultural heritage of shipbuilding and the Irish language, respectively. By examining contemporary practices around placenames, the paper will reveal how they act as framing devices for the staging of the urban atmosphere (Böhme, 2019), setting the scene for the production of the city’s post-conflict identity, in which the everyday practices of intangible cultural heritage are highlighted and prioritised.