Home in Troubled Times: Exploring Everyday Life and Conflict in Northern Ireland using Digital Archives

CAIN was awarded a development grant from the National Lottery Heritage Fund in 2023 to explore ways to engage with new audiences using the theme of 'home'. The project has engaged new audiences with the archive by focusing on histories of everyday life at times of conflict and turmoil. The theme of 'home' was chosen as it has the potential to engage people from the widest range of profiles (age, gender, background, nationality, ethnicity, etc.) around a common experience. People have different interpretations of what home means to them, but engaging with contentious histories and archival materials around this common theme can provoke an interest, and potentially a more thoughtful engagement with wider issues around conflict and change in society.

The theme of 'home' also lends itself well to engagement with some of the core issues of historic conflict and continuing communal division in NI. Housing conditions and charges of discrimination in the allocation of housing were central to the rise of the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. When these issues were addressed through large scale house building, there were major effects on the built landscape of cities and towns, with knock-on impacts on how people experienced and moved around their home places. The early years of the Troubles also saw a huge migration of people, which at the time was the largest movement of population in Europe since the Second World War. Leaving one's home to remake it elsewhere had a major impact on how people lived their lives during the conflict. In addition, the housing redevelopment programmes in the 1960s-80s, coupled with massive population movement, redefined the sectarian geography of NI resulting in a more deeply segregated society.

The project challenges simplistic narratives of the conflict by engaging people with primary archival sources and immersing them in the context of how conflict and peace play out in space, and how communities create and define place.

The existing extensive archival resources on CAIN will be crucial to the success of this, as will the digitisation of under-utilised physical archives to contextualise the conflict and focus attention on the overlaps between conflict and everyday life. Through the project we have collaborated mainly with groups who have not engaged thoroughly with the history of the Troubles or with CAIN in the past, namely young people and immigrant
communities. With Derry and its hinterland as our area of focus we have engaged with youth groups and migrant organisations to co-develop workshops and additional  collaborative research and engagement projects.

It is hoped that we can continue this engagement and we have plans to roll out a large number of new projects, resources and initiatives including;

• New educational resources for schools and youth groups
• Web-based audio-visual materials using archives
• A programme of online exhibitions on CAIN website based on themes of housing, migration and community spirit
• Travelling physical exhibition on 'Home in Troubled Times' theme, with digital access portals to CAIN
• Digitisation of hard to access physical archives on housing
• A series of public talks on themes of home, housing histories, migration, and community spirit

The Home in Troubled Times project is a collaboration between Ulster University, Derry City and Strabane District Council and the Mellon Centre for Migration Studies. It is funded by the National Lottery Heritage Fund Dynamic Collections campaign. Using money raised by National Lottery players, The National Lottery Heritage Fund supports
projects that connect people and communities with the UK's heritage. Home in Troubled Times is made possible with The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Thanks to National Lottery players, we have been able to engage with new audiences in the north west of Ireland to encourage a greater culture of collaboration and build capacity in the CAIN project for the longer term.

The National Lottery Heritage Fund

The National Lottery Heritage Fund is the largest funder for the UK's heritage. Using money raised by National Lottery players we support projects that connect people and communities to heritage. Our vision is for heritage to be valued, cared for and sustained for everyone, now and in the future. From historic buildings, our industrial legacy and the natural environment, to collections, traditions, stories and more. Heritage can be anything from the past that people value and want to pass on to future generations. We believe in the power of heritage to ignite the imagination, offer joy and inspiration, and to build pride in place and connection to the past.