The Fairy Council of Ireland at the River Boyne

This article uses a decolonial climate imaginary to experiment with alternative approaches to heritage scholarship while analysing uses of intangible heritage within an environmental campaign in Ireland. A decolonial approach is used to examine the Save the Boyne campaign, contrasting the scientistic-materialist basis of the authorised heritage discourse with the relational heritage ontology centred on the myths which activists have deployed. A coalition including the Fairy Council of Ireland is objecting to a treated wastewater pipeline in County Meath that, if constructed, would reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of a slaughterhouse yet discharge treated wastewater into the River Boyne. This article considers how a relational ontology might provoke a broadening of heritage conceptualisations and purposes in this time of planetary crisis.