The New Northern Ireland as a Crime Scene

Abstract

This article explores the increased attractiveness of a ‘post-conflict’ Belfast as a television setting for British television police series. The Fall (2013, 2016), Bloodlands (2021) and Marcella (2021) are all set in Belfast, while most of the hit series Line of Duty (2012–) has been filmed in Northern Ireland. How do these new Belfast-set crime dramas negotiate the tropes and iconography of twentieth-century Troubles Belfast, while also participating in the transformation of the city associated with the arrival of transnational audiovisual industries? While recognising that much recent scholarship focuses on the creation of the Titanic Quarter through the redevelopment of the Harland & Wolff shipyard and the production of the HBO-Warner series, Game of Thrones, this article pursues the recent appearances of contemporary Belfast on screen in Bloodlands, Marcella (2021) and Line of Duty. Building on scholarship, such as the work of John Hill, Martin McLoone and Ruth Barton which has established the contours of the Troubles film, the history of Belfast on film and genre in the Northern Ireland context, the existence of an identifiable chronotope ‘Troubles Belfast’ is proposed. Is Belfast recognisable as a specific place outside a Troubles chronotope? What are the stories that can be told of Northern Ireland outside a Troubles chronotope? In particular, which is pertinent to an industry desperate to maintain its attractiveness to transnational productions, the tension between the identification of Belfast as a specific place and the generation of new and different stories is explored in the case studies. To what extent is the televisual use of the new screen Belfast caught in the paradox that it is the old Belfast which makes it an attractive setting for crime drama?