CONTEMPORARY ARCHAEOLOGY AS SHADOW ARCHAEOLOGY IN (THE NORTH OF) IRELAND

It is an accepted truth that archaeology has a long history of political uses, especially in creating legitimacy for new or recently altered nation states. This is especially poignant when one considers how archaeology has been used as a tool of state-building on the island of Ireland, with two different and sometimes contradictory imaginaries being fulfilled by the selective locating, excavating and display of archaeological remains. While the aims have been different in how archaeology has been used in post-independence Ireland in comparison to the newly formed state of Northern Ireland, in both contexts this has resulted in essentially conservative academies that do not engage with more recent pasts, especially through the subdiscipline of contemporary archaeology. This chapter explores some of the background to the denial of archaeology as a potential discipline of the recent past and some of the expected and unintended consequences of a focus on the excavation of the presumed unpolitical remains of a deep past.