Rights of Nature and Heritage on the Island of Ireland

Ulster University will host a symposium connecting more-than-human wellbeing with the intangible cultural heritage of Ireland. This symposium connects academics, activists, and practitioners by exploring intersections between the growing rights of nature movement in Ireland and cultural heritage.

Two major developments are underway: the United Kingdom signed the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, and the government of Ireland is considering a referendum that would enshrine the rights of nature in the Irish Constitution. This symposium connects these parallel currents while locating ecocentric ways of living as both past and future practice within an animated Irish landscape.

The burgeoning rights of nature movement is both a legal and a cultural paradigm shift. This symposium challenges speakers and attendees to consider what an ecocentric approach looks like in practice.

This symposium is meant to stretch disciplinary boundaries and advance restorative understandings of humans' place within the interconnected web of life. Together we will consider the ways cultural heritage in Ireland is a relational and expressive vehicle for improving the correspondence between humans and the eco-places we are accountable to.

Join activists, academics, artists, and heritage practitioners to advance rights of nature discourse through the ways we think about, talk about, and perform heritage. This interactive symposium assures opportunities for attendees to share knowledge and perspectives.

Questions explored at the Symposium include:

• How do the rights of nature shift our ways of researching, activating and considering heritage and law?
• How do heritage practices uphold ecological wellbeing?
• How is heritage an ally and/or detractor in advancing a rights of nature movement?
• What attributes of Irish heritage might signpost improved relations among communities composed of humans, rivers, salmon, fungi, and fields—multi-subject communities?

Confirmed Presenters

• Dr. Liam Campbell, author of Room for the River: The Foyle River Catchment Landscape Connecting People, Place & Nature and director of the Mellon Centre for Migration Studies
• Dr. Peter Doran, earth jurisprudence scholar at Queen’s University Belfast
• Anjuli Grantham, PhD Researcher in Heritage and Climate Action at Ulster University
• Maura Johnson, poet, educator and rights of nature activist
• Rose Kelly, founder of Rights of Nature Donegal
• Mary McGuiggan, founder of The Gathering and Zero Waste North West
• Sinead Mercier, Lecturer in Environmental Law & Policy and School of Law PhD Researcher at University College Dublin
• Sarai Humble, founder of All is Well and the Fairy Council of Ireland