Each year the political connections between Ireland and the USA are highlighted during St Patrick's day events in Washington and other US cities. The public records from the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland (PRONI) and The National Archives, Ireland (NAI) hold many relevant documents. When compiling selections of these records, the most relevant ones related to issues in Northern Ireland are tagged by CAIN staff. Anyone with an interest in this topic can find these items by searching the CAIN Bibliography for the term Political Developments - US / Northern Ireland. There are currently 608 items under this heading.

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Conflict Textiles a large digital collection of international textiles, exhibitions and associated events, all of which focus on elements of conflict and human rights abuses. The collection is mainly comprised of arpilleras, quilts and wall hangings. Conflict Textiles is an Associated Site of CAIN (Conflict Archive on the INternet).

As well as the online archive, exhibitions featuring arpilleras, quilts and wall hangings, have been hosted in museums, universities, art galleries, embassies and community spaces worldwide. Conflict Textiles now has permanent rotating exhibitions at Ulster University and at Queen's University Belfast

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The aim of the COVID-19 and Vulnerable Groups project is to inform public debate on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on vulnerable groups. The latest publication from this project is Children in Lockdown - The impact of COVID-19 on children in Northern Ireland (ARK Feature 19), by Stephanie Maguire. The Feature concludes that the government needs to protect children by ensuring their voices are being heard, and that issues affecting them are being identified and addressed efficiently across the range of services and organisations involved including civil society.

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Three new Research Updates explore attitudes and experiences of good relations, drawing upon data from ARK's public surveys

• Changing identities (Research Update 138) by Paula Devine, explores changing political, national and religious identities between 1998 and 2018
• Good relations: an urban issue? (Research Update 139) by Paula Devine and Martina McKnight, is based on data from the 2019 Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey
• Location matters? Young people and good relations (Research Update 140) by Martina McKnight and Paula Devine, is based upon data from the 2019 Young Life and Times survey.

ARK produces a range of publications, including Research Updates and fact sheets. Most of these are available online. For a full list of publications, as well as links, visit our Publications section.

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This project investigates how the language of contemporary fiction represents the minds of characters with dementia. There has been a 'boom' in fiction about dementia, reflecting the rise in the condition itself and society's need to understand it.

Author Jan Carson is the Outreach Officer for the project, and is working on a series of exciting activities and events. On the project's blog, Jan has been writing reviews of dementia representations in literature and the arts. There are over 50 reviews available so far.

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ARK's three annual surveys record public attitudes to key issues affecting our lives. Tables of results for these surveys are available on the ARK website. The datasets are also freely available in SPSS format for those who wish to undertake their own analysis. Following requests from users, datasets for the Northern Ireland Life and Times survey are now also available in STATA format.

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Where possible, we record our events and make these available on our website, along with slides and other publications. The videos of two recent events are now available on the Seminars page of the ARK website:

• Age as the new class war? Contemporary representations of intergenerational inequity, with Susan Pickard and Angel Leira Pernas, held on 12 March 2021
• Hearing Hidden Voices: Older victims of domestic abuse, with Elizabeth Martin and Rebecca Zerk, held on 17 February 2021

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ARK is Northern Ireland's social policy hub. Established in 2000 by researchers at Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University, its primary goal is to increase the accessibility and use of academic data and research. Most of our dissemination is via our website at www.ark.ac.uk, which is divided into five main areas:

• Surveys
• Projects
• Resources
• Publications
• Events

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