Drawing the Ring of Steel
was a durational commemorative event that took place in Belfast
on March 24, 2022
Drawing the Ring of Steel was a durational commemorative event that took place in Belfast on March 24, 2022. The event was co-directed by Kate Catterall (Assoc. Prof. Design, University of Texas at Austin) and Paula McFetridge (Artistic Director, Kabosh Theatre, Belfast and took place fifty years after the initial construction of the historical security cordon, known to the British Military as the ring of steel. The event was designed to recall memories of a 2.2-mile security cordon that surrounded the city center during the Troubles, an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland (1969-72). The security cordon was selected as the site of commemoration because the experience of being searched to enter the city center, a policy that rendered all Belfast’s inhabitants suspect, was one of few common experiences of the Troubles.
The Day of The Event
Drawing the ring of steel was conceived of and designed by Kate Catterall, and the performative memorial event was co-directed with Paula McFetridge, artistic director of the renowned Belfast theatre group Kabosh. The project utilized the idea of the counter-monument, a monument that deliberately “… undermine[s] its own authority by inviting and then incorporating the ‘authority’ of the passerby” (Young, 2008). Counter-monuments, unlike conventional memorials, subvert official narratives, instead offering opportunities for critical reflection and polyvalent remembrance. They are a uniquely effective mechanism for commemoration on contested ground, where the experience of a conflict remains fresh and memorialization is fractured and segregated.
Site Activations
Interview
As a useful mnemonic, the old security checkpoints that once surrounded the city center were recalled through architectural drawings and inscribed on the ground on their historical sites. On the sites performers conjured memories of demeaning searches at the four main checkpoints in the ring of steel, affording people meaningful opportunities to explore suppressed memories, have their story heard and have others bear witness to their experience. The one-day ‘occupation’ of Belfast City center provoked a lively discussion about how older inhabitants once experienced these sites as places of conflict, submission, transgression and escapism. The event initiated an unprecedented public discourse about the conflict, its memory and legacy; a discussion that continued in the news media and around dinner tables across the city. Some seven hundred and fifty stories were recorded on the day of Drawing the Ring of Steel. The stories built a nuanced picture of everyday experiences during the Troubles.
Interviews
