HERoNI Lecture Series
DfC Historic Environment presents an annual HERoNI Lecture Series, providing an insight into our local heritage, archaeology and more. All of the HERoNI events are in person and are free to attend. They will be held at 2 Titanic Boulevard, Titanic Quarter at the date and times listed. Booking through Eventbrite.
Gratitude in Glass: War Memorial Windows by Clokey of Belfast
Wednesday 12 November 2025, 1pm
Lecture Theatre, 2 Titanic Boulevard, Titanic Quarter
Speaker: Nigel Henderson
HERoNI houses over 1,200 original illustrations and drawings from the Clokey Stained Glass Studios. The Clokey name and product gained esteem throughout Ireland, particularly for their exquisite church windows. The designs were highly valued, leading to their removal from Belfast during the Second World War when they were stored in the country for safekeeping. This talk will give a brief outline about the Clokey firm but will focus on a selection of windows designed and made by the firm to commemorate wartime service of church congregations or individuals. There are at least thirty Clokey war-related memorial windows in Ulster and this talk will include details of the cities, towns, or villages in which they are located.
Pict’n Mix: art and identity in Ireland and Scotland’s Iron Ages
Wednesday 10 December 2025, 1pm
Lecture Theatre, 2 Titanic Boulevard, Titanic Quarter
Speaker: Dr Rena Maguire
New research of a small collection of unusual Iron Age artefacts, mostly found in the north of Ireland, has led to a re-examination of communication between Ireland and Scotland, well before the early medieval kingdom of Dal Riada. Recent work carried out by Scottish scientists and archaeologists on the DNA of small groups of Picts have shown a much more mobile people than once thought, inter-related to other groups across Britain and Ireland. Could the designs on the (possibly) Irish objects be connected to the earliest phases of Pictish identity?
Ruin to Revival?
Wednesday 18 February 2026, 1pm
Lecture Theatre, 2 Titanic Boulevard, Titanic Quarter
Speaker: Conor Sandford
The Historic Environment Division, of Northern Ireland’s Department for Communities has the statutory responsibility for the protection of the historic environment throughout Northern Ireland. Specialist teams manage just over 190 monuments in the care of the Department. There are presently over 8,800 listed buildings of which over 900 are listed places of worship and over 1,900 monuments are protected through scheduling. In addition, there are over 16,000 recorded archaeological sites across Northern Ireland. Join us for this talk looking at some of the recent projects carried out to protect and enhance these important sites.
Nutts Corner in War and Peace 1941-1963
Wednesday 11 March 2026, 1pm
Lecture Theatre, 2 Titanic Boulevard, Titanic Quarter
Speaker: Guy Warner
Nutts Corner airfield was conceived and built during the Second World War. It was not, as some commentators would have it, previously a civil airport; rather, it was one of 22 new airfields that were constructed in Northern Ireland during the war, for military use. Before being acquired for construction it consisted of farmers’ fields in the townlands of Dundesert and Aughnamullan in the parish of Killead, four miles to the east of Lough Neagh in Co Antrim and a couple of miles to the southeast of Aldergrove. During the war it filled several vital roles: for Coastal Command, Army Co-operation Command, Training Command, the Fleet Air Arm and as a Transatlantic Ferry terminal for the US Army Air Force. Post-war, it became the civil airport for Northern Ireland and was a major economic and social driver, laying the foundations of the network that is today’s interconnected world. It was also a homely place of work, well-loved and fondly remembered by those who worked there.
Hidden in plain sight? Mapping medieval urban landscapes in Ireland
Wednesday 15 April 2026, 1pm
Lecture Theatre, 2 Titanic Boulevard, Titanic Quarter
Speaker: Prof. Keith Lilley
Looking at historic urban landscapes of Ireland today, much of what is visible to us appears to be relatively recent in origin. The last few centuries especially have left their mark on our historic towns and cities. There are, however, clues that take us back to much earlier times, to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. This period of European history saw hundreds, if not thousands, of ‘new towns’ being created, as well as oldestablished cities being expanded. Ireland was not immune from this ‘urbanisation of the Middle Ages’, but the physical trace in the urban landscape is often difficult to discern. This lecture will reveal the medieval antecedents of our towns and cities, looking particularly at examples in the north-east of Ireland, in the Earldom of Ulster. Places including Newtownards and Belfast are among those that had medieval urban origins. Professor Lilley will use historic maps as a way of revealing these medieval urban landscapes that are ‘hidden in plain sight’. Doing so yields new and exciting insights into how our towns and cities were shaped on the ground over eight hundred years ago, and their landscape legacies, adding to the important archaeological, historical and heritage value of these places today.
The Workhouse Fever Hospital in the North of Ireland: buildings, doctors and patients
Wednesday 20 May 2026, 1pm
Lecture Theatre, 2 Titanic Boulevard, Titanic Quarter
Speaker: Gill Almond
In 1844, following a world-wide typhus epidemic that affected many towns in Ireland, George Wilkinson, architect to the Poor Law Commissioners, was asked to produce designs for fever hospitals, to be added to workhouse sites. Although reluctant provision had been made for the sick poor in Wilkinson’s original workhouse designs, the workhouses were originally intended primarily for the able-bodied poor. The construction of the fever hospitals marked the beginning of the long transition made by many workhouses from buildings designed to discourage the poor from relying on the state, to modern hospital facilities caring for all. This talk will consider the architecture and layouts of the Fever Hospitals, some of the doctors associated with them, the types of diseases and treatments offered, the experience of patients and the survival and use of buildings to the present day.
An Archaeology of the coarse earthenware industry in Ulster during the 17th and 18th centuries
Wednesday 17 June 2026, 1pm
Lecture Theatre, 2 Titanic Boulevard, Titanic Quarter
Speaker: Dr Naomi Carver
Glazed coarse earthenware, often called blackware or brownware, is a ubiquitous pottery type found on post-medieval excavations. The pottery’s prevalence is at odds with its appearance in archaeological literature. It is often lumped together with a broad seventeenth to nineteenth century date and given little attention beyond basic quantification. Similarly, the type is rarely synthesized into the narrative of wider events. This talk will examine glazed coarse earthenware on a multi-scalar level, including its production and consumption in Ulster, and some of the significance of its presence to society in post-medieval Ulster.