Imagining Medieval Belfast: Castles, Artefacts + Clay making

Saturday 25th April, 1pm - 3pm

at Catalyst Arts, Belfast
~ a decolonial history and clay sculpture workshop by Queer Shed Béal Feirste ~

Prehistoric iron sword found under Queen Street ... neolithic axes at City Airport … old town defences under Victoria Square … could there be Gaelic castle foundations under Dunnes Stores?

Béal Feirste has a long and buried (literally) history. The average book will tell you that our city centre began life in the 1600s with the Ulster Plantation and Sir Chichester’s English Crown administration. There wasn’t much to speak of, we are usually told, before this. Certainly not a 16th Century Gaelic castle… and not either an Anglo-Norman one… no ancient church from the 1300s, no waterwheel, no battles, no fishing, foraging, living, travelling, loving, dying….

Artefacts from Béal Feirste’s oldest, and for some inconvenient, history have already been found beneath our shops and streets and Archaeologists believe that much more could be buried for us to rediscover. Under the lives we live around town today, a whole Medieval world could wait. Join Queer Shed Béal Feirste for this decolonial history workshop to excavate and reimagine some of our earliest possibilities.

The workshop will start with a talk from local history tour guide Derbhla McDermott (derbhla.ie) exploring archaeological digs across our town, what has been found, and what could still be waiting patiently for us to claim. Then Ceramicist Laura Potts (pot.t.s) will be on hand to guide us in creating our own ancient Belfast artefact in clay, drawing from examples of the cool/weird/interesting Medieval things found around Belfast, the rest of Ireland or wherever our imagination takes us. This is a shared history for us to build in our hands, rediscover and reinvent whatever new ancient ways we feel like.

Everyone’s clay artefacts will be kiln fired by Laura, and then a further date arranged for collection after the workshop.

★ HISTORY IS NOW ★