Skateboarding and contested public space in Portrush, Northern Ireland: exploring tensions between resortification and DIY space-claiming through co-creative methodology

The seaside town of Portrush, on the north coast of Ireland, has a strong reputation for skateboarding culture. The Skate Stopped? co-creative research project is a critical intervention in the campaign to ‘Get Portrush a Skatepark!’, collaborating with the community to raise the profile of skateboarding’s cultural tradition in the area, and engaging the skaters in critical dialogue in this gentrifying context. This article focuses on the project’s video outputs (as published between April and October 2023), picking out two key critical themes: Do-It-Yourself (DIY) culture and space-claiming; and resortification (gentrification in a touristic context). We argue that any contemporary campaign that engages in DIY space-claiming constitutes (at least partially) a critique of neoliberalism—the limitations of skateboarding in Portrush in this regard and the vulnerability to co-optation within a resortifying dynamic are discussed, while exemplifying the insights that can be garnered through co-creative videographic research methodologies.