Historic Houses, Global Crossroads
A collaborative project revealing how historic sites can position themselves as global crossroads, enabling multiple global publics to connect their lived experience with them.
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Banner Image: Aerial view of the house and the garden at Mount Stewart, County Down | ©National Trust Images/James Dobson
Historic Houses Global Crossroads: Revisioning Two Northern Ireland Historic Houses and Estates
Funder: Arts and Humanities Research Council of the United Kingdom, Standard Research Grant AH/Z506436/1 (£1,497,041), 2024-27

Team: PL Joy Porter (University of Birmingham), PcL Olwen Purdue (Queen’s University Belfast), PcL Charles Prior (University of Birmingham), PcL Julieanne McMahon-Grier (National Trust), PcL Maitrii Aung-Thwin (National University of Singapore), PcL Annie Tindley, PcL (Newcastle University) Emma Reisz (Queen’s University Belfast), PcL Mark McGowan (University of Toronto), RIA Briony Widdis (Queen’s University Belfast), RIA Gloria Amaris (University of Birmingham)
Project Partners: Clandeboye Estate, Northern Ireland Forest Schools Association, Photo Museum Ireland, ArtsEkta, Canada Ireland Foundation, Professor Stephane Hess
Historic properties and their environments face acute challenges from climate change and a diversity deficit linked to the perception they embody only empire and exploitation. Without diminishing these histories, the Historic Houses Global Crossroads project is revealing how historic sites can beneficially position themselves in a new way, as global crossroads, entangled intersections of diplomatic, material and intercultural exchange. Setting aside both methodological nationalism and a conventional family-owner focus, we are foregrounding global interconnections between people, environments, material culture, and ideas.
Our research concentrates on two of Northern Ireland’s most globally significant yet under-analysed heritage sites – Clandeboye Estate, containing exceptional extensive unstudied archives and material culture, and Mount Stewart, amongst the National Trust’s most interculturally rich spaces. We are addressing the urgent social challenge of ensuring they serve as transformative sites of inclusion, rather than division. This work has vital significance in the contested political context of Northern Ireland where historic houses are embedded in a long history of empire, internal colonialism and sectarian division. We are deepening and profoundly broadening understanding of both sites, revealing for the first time the textured flows of global interconnection they embody.
To find out more, watch the Historic Houses Global Crossroads introductory film below.
Historic Houses Global Crossroads Project Launch

Historic Houses Global Crossroads was launched at special event at Mount Stewart in County Down, Northern Ireland on 20 January 2025.
We welcomed over 40 attendees to the project launch, including the project team, representatives from each of the Project Partners: National Trust, Clandeboye Estate, ArtsEkta, Canada Ireland Foundation, Northern Ireland Forest Schools Association, and Photo Museum Ireland, as well as over 20 National Trust staff members, Eamonn McKee (Chief of Protocol, Department of Foreign Affairs, Dublin), and Lady Rose and Peter Lauritzen of Mount Stewart.
The launch featured two keynote speeches by Dr Eamonn McKee Chief of Protocol, Department of Foreign Affairs, Dublin and Sir Ian Huddleston, Director, Clandeboye Estate & Chair of the Trustees of the Dufferin Foundation. Watch the two keynotes below.
Keynote 1: Profile of Lord Dufferin by Dr Eamonn McKee, Chief of Protocol, Department of Foreign Affairs, Dublin
Keynote 2: How HHGC fits with the needs and objectives of Clandeboye Estate by Sir Ian Huddleston, Director, Clandeboye Estate & Chair of the Trustees of the Dufferin Foundation