Counter-Cartograpy of the Border-Busters, Ireland.
This project, funded by a British Academy / Leverhulme Small Project grant, will be the first to explore the “Border Busters” phenomena of collective self-organised resistant actions to the politico-spatial colonial border in Ireland during the “Troubles” (1968-1998). The research pilots a counter-cartography of this phenomena, developing a public-facing, web-based, mixed-media digital platform.
In light of what we see as the urgent need to develop new counter-histories of Irish partition as correlativ to dominant colonial narratives, this research responds not only to the overlooked phenomena of the "Border Busters", but also to a resurgent interest in the Irish-British relationship, and questioning of Ireland’ partition (which had it centenary in 2021). The study thus contributes to significant contemporary debates, relevant to cross-community local histories/futures; studies of borders globally; and to contemporar struggles around histories and popular understandings of partition and Empire.
An Phoblacht/Republican News, 22 September 1994.