Derry’s Troubled Years

Description

Eamon Melaugh

In the early 1960s and 1970s, Eamon Melaugh participated in, and photographed, events in Derry that were to have a greater impact than any of those involved could ever have imagined. From the RUC attacks on civil rights marchers in Duke Street on 5 October 1968 to the massacre on Bloody Sunday, Derry was to become the focus of all that was happening in the north of Ireland which reignited the Troubles for a new generation.

Derry’s Troubled Years contains a selection of Melaugh’s striking images of the early years of these momentous times, capturing conflict and its participants alongside daily life in Derry. His photographs are an invaluable record of a city in turmoil and a graphic reminder of the events that were the root cause of the struggle for equality that was to follow.

Through Melaugh’s eyes we watch a city suffer, and we watch it endure. We see protests highlighting shocking housing conditions, and rallies against unemployment and gerrymandering. And, almost incredibly in retrospect, we witness a huge section of a city blockade itself off from British and unionist misrule to exist independently for three years as ‘Free Derry’.

Melaugh’s unique image collection, first published in 2005, allows us to look afresh at the magnitude of the 1968 revolution which began in Derry and to assess the impact of the ensuing troubled years on a city and its people.