ABSTRACT
This chapter explores how the heritage lottery fund (HLF) and its partners approached the contested nature of heritage in Northern Ireland through the funding of community-based heritage projects. It focuses on HLF's strategic and practical engagement with the decade of Centenaries, which marks the period between 1912 and 1923 that includes the centenaries of the Easter Rising, First World War and Partition of Ireland. The chapter also focuses on the theoretical landscape of heritage studies. It also explores how heritage is produced and the forces that help shape its construction. The example of commemoration emphasises the challenges that heritage poses when put to use, and this becomes evident in the practical outworking of the work of the HLF and community relations council around commemoration. Sharon Macdonald recognises the disruptive potential of heritage, which she conceptualises as difficult heritage. Difficult heritage is where 'a past is recognised as meaningful in the present but that is also contested'.
