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

‘_Troubled Images_ is laid out in an entirely impartial and neutral fashion; this collection provides a rich seam of material.'

‘The great tragedies of our time feature alongside moments of hope, they are all there.'

No one in Northern Ireland is unaffected by these events ... Everything is coded. Things carry a narrative charge.

_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.

The Linen Hall Library was founded in 1788 ‘to excite a spirit of enquiry'. It has made no more remarkable intervention than the commencement of the collection of political ephemera in 1968, at the very outset of the Troubles. That was the origin of our unique Northern Ireland Political Collection, in turn the source of the posters featured in _Troubled Images_.

At the heart of this endeavour lies the Library's commitment to openness in an often-censorious society. Librarians should avoid grand illusions that we can transform society ourselves, but we can avoid compounding its problems. In the Enlightenment spirit of our founders, I believe that freedom of information encourages understanding.

_Troubled Images_ opens up one of the most vivid forms of expression of a society in conflict. Collecting is one thing; now we are providing unrivalled accessed in a variety of ways (book, CD-ROM, exhibition), and here we seek to go a step further—to offer some opinions and conclusions on what has been done along with the images.

It has been a particular pleasure for me to work with the project team while writing the notes to individual posters. Debate and discussion amongst a dedicated group with widely differing opinions has, hopefully, enormously strengthened the outcome. It is characteristic of the liberal tradition of the Library that its Governors, while concerned with the sheer scale of the project, enthusiastically supported the venture, and left judgements on content to those engaged in it.

John Gray
Librarian, Linen Hall Library

Self-standing though _Troubled Images_ is, it is part of a much more extensive endeavour; it is the catalogue to an exhibition of the posters featured here, and both book and exhibition are drawn from the over 3,000 posters and artefacts included in our simultaneously published _Troubled Images CD-ROM_.

In 1986, in what was then a truly mould-breaking enterprise, the Linen Hall Library first exhibited political posters at a city centre gallery, under the title of ‘Troubled Images'. The event aroused huge public and media interest, although one local art critic denounced it as ‘propaganda not art'.

Times have moved on. Political posters may be propaganda, but they are as close to art as many in our society come. They may still encapsulate the continuing conventions of political campaigning, but they more obviously reflect in a vivid and often memorable way the hopes, hatreds and passions of what remains a deeply divided society.

It would be wholly inadequate to simply display the posters without commentary. After more than 30 years of conflict, even those of us who have lived through it often forget context, while those from further afield require it. A most valuable part of this whole project has been the use of the Library's many contacts to track down, as far as possible, those who created the posters and to ask them why they made the images they did.

We have gone a step further. In Belinda Loftus's overview and John Gray's commentaries on the individual posters, they suggest which changes in technique or approach were transforming, and which posters were more or less effective and why. While their contributions stand in their own names, the whole enterprise has been informed by constant debate within the project team. The Linen Hall Library and its Northern Ireland Political Collection have a proud reputation for neutrality, but it is an engaged neutrality in which we, no less than the community in which we live and serve, have widely differing opinions. We have sought to use this as a source of enrichment in our work.

Even the selection of the 70 posters for publication here and for the exhibition presented challenges. We had to balance the inclusion of some of the most dramatic posters with the equally obvious requirement to have posters reflecting the whole political spectrum and other non-party political campaigns. Our final selection is intended to represent as wide a range of opinion as possible on the major events, issues and individuals of the past four decades.

None of this could have been achieved without the unique nature of the Linen Hall Library. Founded in 1788, it is Belfast's oldest library with a proud record of independence. The more direct antecedents of _Troubled Images_ go back to 1968, at the very outset of the Troubles, when the then Librarian, Jimmy Vitty, was handed a civil rights leaflet in a city centre bar. He kept it. Since then the Library has sought to collect all printed material relating to Northern Ireland politics. Now, more than three decades later, a quarter of a million items have been amassed in the Northern Ireland Political Collection.

The Political Collection is a unique resource; no other institution in a localised conflict has systematically collected material from all sides. Much less has it been done in the field and often literally across the barricades. The Northern Ireland Political Collection documents the activities of all parties to the conflict, from paramilitaries to governments. It covers publications by organisations on the margins of the direct political process, as well as those chiefly concerned with social issues. The literature ranges from the most ephemeral—stickers, leaflets, posters and Christmas cards—to more substantial collections of books, pamphlets, political papers, manifestos, press cuttings, photographs and audio-visual items. A large proportion of these items is held by the Library alone.

The Linen Hall Library collects ‘without fear or favour' and provides a neutral city centre location. Within it, the Political Collection is a place where any view can be consulted. Here our own community can find what, after all, is the literature they produced, decision makers can find material on which to base opinions, political opponents can view each other's material, and students of political conflict can find an unrivalled resource. By making the material available, the Library aims to play a vital role in contributing to a better understanding of the conflict.

As the efforts to secure a peaceful future for Northern Ireland continue, it is in this spirit that we took the opportunity to look back at some of the eye-catching, thought-provoking and painful images of the past, with just a small sample presented here in _Troubled Images_.

Yvonne Murphy has been Librarian of the Northern Ireland Political Collection at the Linen Hall Library since 1995, and was the Project Manager for the Troubled Images project. Born in Portadown, she has taught English at Methodist College, Belfast, and has worked in libraries for the London Borough of Bromley, the House of Commons, Westminster, and the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House, London.

Allan Leonard was Marketing Officer for the Troubled Images project. He received a Master's degree in Irish Political Studies from University College Dublin, and is presently employed as a Research Officer for the Alliance Party at the Northern Ireland Assembly. With Thomas Hennessey, he is co-author of the forthcoming publication, _The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century Ireland_.

Gordon Gillespie was one of the Research Officers for the Troubled Images project. He has written on a range of subjects connected with Northern Irish politics, including the Ulster Liberal Party, Ulster loyalists, and the impact of equality legislation in Northern Ireland. His best-known work is _Northern Ireland: A Chronology of the Troubles, 1968-1999_, which he co-authored with Paul Bew. Gordon Gillespie is currently researching the impact of the Troubles on several aspects of popular culture.

Kris Brown is a Library Assistant at the Northern Ireland Political Collection. He received a Doctoral degree in Politics from Queen's University, Belfast, for his thesis on post-war Irish foreign policy. He has written numerous book reviews on a variety of Northern Ireland political subjects.

Belinda Loftus has a PhD in Sociology for her thesis on imagery of the Northern Ireland Troubles. After working at the Paul Mellon Foundation for British Art and at the Imperial War Museum, she moved to Northern Ireland in 1975. Since then she has worked as a freelance art critic and exhibition curator, a local government arts officer and a consultant to arts and community organisations. She has published two books and numerous articles on Troubles imagery.

John Gray was Irish and Local Studies Librarian in the public library service before becoming Librarian of the Linen Hall Library in 1982. His book, _City in Revolt: James Larkin and the Belfast Dock Strike of 1907_, has been recognised as a pioneering work of labour history. He has written and broadcast extensively on many aspects of modern Irish social history and in particular relating to Belfast.