Ulster’s Orange Halls: heritage worth surrendering?

Despite the 700 Orange Halls that currently exist across the historic province of Ulster, a search for ‘Orange Hall’ on the Northern Ireland Department for Communities Heritage at Risk website yields a mere 4 results. These traditional meeting places for the fraternal religious organisation known as the Orange Order dot the landscape and while some are proudly proclaimed, the majority are alternatively hidden in plain sight, fortified to the point of impenetrability, or falling into disuse and disrepair. The gradual decline of the Orange Order is at once symbolic of irreversible advances towards a more inclusive society. Its buildings – to those who maintain and protect them against the flow of secularisation and demographic shifts – are a material expression of the importance of resisting change and preserving heritage, whilst to others, they are symbolic of historic oppression and inequality, and their demise is perhaps to be welcomed.

This visual paper uses images from my current research, I Am Where I Am Not, to explore the buildings photographically and autoethographically and examine these contested spaces in post-conflict (Northern) Ireland; buildings that challenge any definition of heritage as benign and something to be unquestioningly preserved. Drawing on a methodology that incorporates Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, I will present an emerging visual typology, and using the unique example of Newfoundland’s Orange Halls as a counterpoint, look at how these heritage sites are not only emblematic of the past and present, but also of possible futures.