AN exhibition on the McGurk's Bar massacre by a local artist has been launched in Belfast.
15 people were murdered and many more were injured when the UVF detonated a bomb in the North Queen Street bar on December 4, 1971, which caused the building to collapse.
Ní Bheidh Sé Mar a Bhí by award-winning local artist, Sinéad O’Neill-Nicholl is an audio-visual installation featuring reconstructed recorded interviews with relatives of those murdered in the atrocity.
The launch took place at 7pm in Cultúrlann MacAdam Ó Fiaich on the Falls Road on Thursday.
The installation offers a public space for the victims’ families to share their personal memories of grief and loss in their own words – and away from the glare of the political and media spotlight.
Ní Bheidh Sé Mar a Bhí follows the success of Never the Same which Sinéad O’Neill-Nicholl launched on the 50th anniversary at the very site of the massacre.
Here, the artist invites you into what appears to be a 1970s living room to listen to what the families remembered and experienced.
Sinéad said: “I have gathered a collection of contemporaneous, everyday household objects from the 1970s which evoke a sense of time and place.
ARTIST: Sinead O'Neill-Nicholl
"These artefacts also reflect the conversations I recorded with the families, and you can listen to these.
"Ní Bheidh Sé Mar a Bhí also fills the gallery with a rhythmic and evocative soundscape that flips between this audible dialogue and layered vocal sounds as you move across the space.”
Ciarán MacAirt, a grandson of two of the victims of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre, added: “Remembrance and commemoration are more important to our families as we grow older. We also seek new ways of telling our story to a wider audience.
"Ní Bheidh Sé Mar a Bhí is yet another innovative work of art by Sinéad O’Neill-Nicholl that may be ground-breaking but remains hauntingly emotive and accessible to all.”
The exhibition will run until Thursday, October 6 in the Dillon Suite.
