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New approaches to the border

Recent attempts to explore the social and economic impact of the border have been matched by grassroots efforts to record the recent and longer histories of the border counties and to explore the meaning and significance of the border. Some of this has emerged from the experience of cross-border projects of various kinds or itself been a cross-border endeavour. Some argue that these efforts are signs of a collective border identity that overrides old divisions. Others argue for the practical importance of cross-border co-operation.

The last decade of the twentieth century and the first of the twentieth first has seen a number of significant efforts to re-examine the meaning of the border and to record its impact on everyday lives. Some of them reflect well-established interests in local history and a sense of its value in the region; others like the Borderlines exhibition, book and DVD featuring photographs of border landscapes and personal stories of the border produced by the Gallery of Photography in Dublin in 2006, are new initiatives stemming from wider recognition of the value of addressing the past in Northern Ireland and Ireland. The work on local groups and organisations is parallel by new research initiatives and centres addressing the border and cross-border issues. See links and resources.

In November 2001, for example, the first of series conferences organised by the Ulster Local History Trust (Northern Ireland) in association with The Heritage Council (Ireland) was held in Monaghan town to celebrate and promote the longstanding work of local people exploring the history of the borderlands. Its focus was ‘The Debateable land’ – the border counties of south Ulster which have been deeply shaped by their historical place between the north east of Ireland and the rest of the island, and by the political border between Northern Ireland and Ireland. The conference highlighted the longstanding work of local historians in the border counties and provided practical advice for future local historians of the region. For Brian Turner, one of the main conference organisers, there is a direct link between complexities and tensions of the borderlands and the growth of local historical societies and local museums. Local history has been a way of dealing with the ‘tensions, boundaries and contradictions’ of life in the borderlands.

To have tension, boundaries, contradictions at your heart can be painful and unsettling, but it may also stimulate creativity. From Ireland’s border counties people look north, south, east, and west, & for those who live there they are, and ought to be, the centre of the world. And within the border counties can be found the greatest variety of social and economic, religious and political traditions of the island. It is, perhaps, no accident that within the troubled second half of the twentieth century this is an area, on both sides of the political boundary, which has led the way both in the formation of voluntary local historical societies and in the establishment of publicly funded county museums." (Brian Turner, ed. The Debateable Land: Ireland’s Border Counties. Downpatrick: Ulster Local History Trust, 2002, page 7)

This emphasis on the constructive possibilities of a shared interest in exploring cultural similarities and differences, and shared and distinctive experiences of the border is also found in another argument about the emergence of a new collective border identity. In 1999 a collection of one hundred views on the border gathered together by the Paddy Logue was published as a way of addressing questions about the ‘history, purpose, economics, politics and impact of the Border’. It was, as he writes, ‘inspired by the practical needs of Border people, cross-border workers and cross-border policy-makers to take a cold, fresh look at the Border and what it means to people at the end of the twentieth century’ (The Border, 1999, 2-3). He suggests that there is ‘the faintest trace’ of a new ‘constituency’ that is composed of all those, from whatever political background, who in living on or near the border have together experienced the conflict, disruption and the effects of being economically marginalised. His vision is of a regenerated border region shaped by the energetic cross-border collective efforts of ‘Border People’ challenging their social and economic exclusion. Shared experiences of the effects of the border could be the basis of a border-crossing collective border identity.

I detect in all this cross-border work the faintest trace of a new constituency similar to the North, the West, the South. It is the Border. It is a constituency of people who live in the towns and countryside that lie adjacent to the Border. It is the people who live on the margins of the two states in Ireland, who more than any other have suffered structural neglect from both governments. It is the people who more than any other have borne the brunt of the conflict and endured the greatest disruption. And it is down us, the Border People, the rural and the urban, the nationalist and the unionist, the Northerner and the Southerner, to make common cause in raising the issues of our social exclusion and reconciliation with the two governments and the European Union. It is down to us to exploit jointly and energetically the talents and resources and opportunities of our border region. Cross-border co-operation is an idea whose time has come." (Paddy Logue, ed. The Border: Personal Reflections from Ireland, North and South. Dublin: Oak Tree Press, 1999, page 9-10)

Others also point to the significance of border-crossing experiences and efforts, to the way people have maintained or forged connections across the border in those organisations or societies that have long overlooked the border in their activities or in new cross-border co-operative ventures from voluntary societies and community groups to cross-border local government networks that have developed along the border. There are new calls for the importance of recognising the value of the cross-border efforts of voluntary and community groups who have already been active in addressing the problems of the borderlands, for the importance of making use of existing cross-border networks between local authorities in any funding or policy development, for integrating existing community and voluntary groups into policy making on the border area, and for effectively implementing the policy for cross-border co-operation as set out in the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

Though cross-border co-operation can be interpreted as a cover for moves to political re-integration, for many cross-border cooperation has lost some of its traditional political associations. It is now being argued that cross-border co-operation can instead be an alternative to the idea of neat boundaries between states and between groups, and to the old conflict between defending or destroying the border. In most practical and concrete terms it is about recognising shared goals and the mutual benefit of constructive relationships between people at the grassroots and between governments.

These new perspectives on the border thus challenge the lack of knowledge and understanding about the borderlands by providing new local and community histories that reflect the complexity of connections, divisions and commonalities between people in the borderlands. They suggest the possibilities of new collective cross-border and cross-community identities based on shared experiences of the border; and they ague for new ways of addressing the social and economic problems of the region and the social and cultural legacies of division through cross-border co-operation.