Troubled Images: Posters and Images of the Northern Ireland Conflict from the Linen Hall Library, Belfast

by Gordon Gillespie, Allan Leonard, Gordon Gillespie

Troubled Images is the first major publication of the posters of the Northern Ireland conflict. The 124-page book contains 140 illustrations (115 in full colour) and detailed accounts of 70 posters of a travelling international exhibition.

The book includes an excellent overview essay, "Visualising the Troubles", written by Belinda Loftus, an expert on graphic imagery and author of Mirror: Orange and Green.

Informative commentaries to the featured exhibition posters are written by John Gray, Librarian of the Linen Hall Library, Belfast.

Edited by a diverse team of four, and scrutinised by a large project team, the entire spectrum of the Northern Ireland conflict is covered—from its political parties and security forces to activists, ethnic groups and community organisations.

Genres: Ireland, Art

Paperback

First published October 9, 2001

About the author

Gordon Gillespie has taught in the School of Economics and Politics at the University of Ulster and was a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University, Belfast. He has written on a range of topics associated with the Northern Ireland conflict including loyalist politics, aspects of popular culture associated with the Troubles, political imagery and symbols and electoral systems in Northern Ireland.

Reviews

[Nicholas Whyte]

http://nhw.livejournal.com/863119.html[return][return]Lots of pictures here, many of them very familiar to me from my own experience of Northern Ireland politics. The explanatory text is best when it explains the roots of some of the images used; the political commentary, however, has dated rather rapidly.[return][return]One thing that surprised me was the prominence of Cedric Wilson as a personality in this side of things. I knew him as a rather buffoonish character at the time I was most involved - he was the one who heckled President Clinton at his speech at Mackies in December 1995, and when I was involved with the Mitchell talks he was still hanging around with Bob McCartney, though they split fairly quickly after the 1998 Assembly elections. But according to this book he designed both the "Ulster Say No" logo of the mid-80s, and the "Heart for Ulster" anti-Agreement logo more recently. I have to honestly confess this is the first I'd heard of it, but presumably the editors did their research, which means I seriously underestimated him.