Grimaldi’s iconic photograph: Bloody Sunday,Derry 1972

Theorising photographic iconicity

Grimaldi’s image demonstrates the hallmarks of iconicity as they are identified in the substantial body of scholarship by communication theorists, Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites (2001, 2002, 2003, 2007). Hariman and Lucaites define photographic iconicity as,

images appearing in print, electronic or digital media that are widely recognised and remembered, are understood to be representative of historically significant events, activate strong emotional identification or responses, and are reproduced across a range of media, genres, and topics. (2007: 27)

Hariman and Lucaites examine and classify an extensive body of iconic, American photographic resources for public engagement and collective political action that, they argue, ‘underwrite democratic polity’ and reveal shifts towards more democratic identities (2007: 13). Others scholars, however (Domke et al., 2002) contest these claims and question the reliability of measures for determining the influence of visual icons in social and political life.

Iconic status is not created instantaneously; it is acquired through reproduction, circulation, and continuously negotiated meaning making (Hariman and Lucaites, 2007: 12). In many cases, including the example considered here, there is engagement with both the image and its photographer, who provides additional information about the image, beyond that which can be seen and often and whose story also becomes a part of iconicity. The diverse meanings of visual icons are coded through multi-layered visual cues, semiotic codes, and cultural meanings. These meanings are articulated and challenged through repetition across various mediums and contexts. Over time, they can solidify iconic status, and can also numb emotional responses through familiarity.

Evacuating Jackie Duddy

Grimaldi’s iconic photograph (1972) represents a split moment in time, an entire day-long event, and a community’s decades-long struggle over nationhood (Figure 1). This photograph is one of many black and white and colour photographs, along with live television footage, that documents a march organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association to protest the policy of internment without trial that was introduced by Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, Brian Faulkner’s government on 9 August 1971. ⁷ Grimaldi’s photograph pictures a small group of men working together to evacuate the lifeless body of John (Jackie) Francis Duddy, a Derry-born, 17-year-old, textile worker (Faus, 2007; McCann, 2006). The names of shooting victim, Jackie Duddy and Father Edward Daly (also in the photograph), have endured with the image’s circulation, but the names of the other men pictured (from left to right): Liam Bradley; Willy Barber (deceased); Charles (‘Charlie’) Glenn (a Corporal in the Order of Malta Ambulance Corps); and, William Mc Chrystal have faded with time (Saville et al., 2010a: 15). OPEN IN VIEWER

Erika Hanna affirms the image’s iconic status as ‘one of the most enduring images of the Troubles’ and suggests that it ‘symbolize(s) the trauma and the pain of the whole Catholic community throughout the Troubles’ (2015: 427, 429). Graham Dawson refers to this image as ‘the most remembered icon of Bloody Sunday,’ and asserts ‘this photograph above all others is held by many to encapsulate the meaning of Bloody Sunday’ (2005: 145, 165). Lawyers at Saville et al. Inquiry into Bloody Sunday referenced the photograph’s ‘now famous’ status (2010a: 28). Brian Conway describes the image as ‘the canonical image of Bloody Sunday, analogous to the shot of US President John F Kennedy being assassinated as his motorcade made its way through the streets of Dallas’ (2010a: 129). In Caroline Dutka’s analysis of postmemory, Grimaldi’s image is characterised as, ‘quite possibly the most well-known of all photographs taken during the Northern Irish conflict,’ and is referred to by one her participants, who also appears in it, as ‘the iconic’ (2016: 79, 88). Father Daly’s white handkerchief is included in Fintan O’Toole’s A History of Ireland in 100 Objects, where an image, in this case, one that is credited to Mirrorpix, the photograph archive of The Daily Mail newspaper, stands in for the actual object. ⁸

Producing contested meanings

Grimaldi’s photograph, as a still image and a portable material object, is recalled and ignored in notable ways. His image is positioned in a landscape of ‘competing imaginative geographies’ across which Bloody Sunday is remembered and forgotten (Dawson, 2005: 159, 165). Its contested meanings fragment communities and contest nationalisms in Northern Ireland’s still fractious political process (Conway, 2010a). ⁹ Grimaldi’s image is used as a visual tool to solidify community identities; his image is mobilised to uphold claims about Northern Ireland as a democratic polity, at the same time that it is used to test these claims. For example, interrogation of Grimaldi’s photograph in official, state-led inquiries failed to reach agreement about the necessity of state force. In the case of one inquiry, the 1972 Widgery Inquiry, the findings blamed marchers for the violence; in the case of the other, the 2010 Saville et al. Inquiry, it exonerated marchers from blame. ¹⁰ Beyond their support for the first, state-led inquiry, and despite opposition to the second inquiry, many unionists concur with state findings. For many unionists, state-led investigations are sufficient justification to close discussions about Bloody Sunday, even as its visual contestation persists. Nationalists embrace the visual icon for its ability to communicate narratives about social inequalities and its commemorative expression. Unionists, for whom this visual icon is also recognisable, choose to overlook its circulation and meanings. Against these public contestations, some visual artists also use Grimaldi’s iconic image to question contested nationalisms and appeal for continued negotiation. Despite their artistic intercessions, I argue that conflicted visual narratives about Bloody Sunday persist and continue to shape community divisions by highlighting the significance of contested nationalisms, even during the post-peace accord period in Northern Ireland.

Official inquiry, defence, forgetting: State and unionist responses

At the Widgery and Saville inquiries, select photographs and television film were used to reconstruct official versions of events. Grimaldi’s photograph was dissected as evidence at both inquiries, and Grimaldi spoke about his photograph at both inquiries. The dissection of select images and film at state-led inquiries further fragmented state and unionist narratives from nationalist narratives and widened gaps in contested nationalisms. This is particularly true for the Widgery Inquiry, initiated by British Prime Minister Edward Heath and convened immediately following Bloody Sunday. Established under the UK Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921, the inquiry was intended as a fact-finding mission. A single judge, Lord Chief Justice John [Passmore] Widgery, investigated the events based on the eye witness testimonies from 114 select witnesses, heard over 17 days, and on the basis of select photographic evidence (McCann, 2006: 1). ¹¹ In a report that stood as the official version of events for 16 years, Lord Widgery confirmed, ‘a particularly valuable feature of the evidence was the large number of photographs taken by professional photographers who had gone to Derry to cover the march’ (1972). Over 100 photographs were entered as evidence; more than half of these were referenced in Widgery’s April 1972 report. A majority, 30 of 57 photographs referenced, were taken by press photographers (Bell, 2011).

Erika Hanna alleges that Widgery made ‘careful study’ of press photographs (2015: 461). Seven of Grimaldi’s photographs were examined, including his now iconic photograph of Jackie Duddy (Hanna, 2015; Saville et al., 2010a: 461). ¹² In 1972, Grimaldi’s image, although already printed in the press, would not have been regarded as iconic; however, its scrutiny by Widgery and then later, Saville, likely contributed to this status. Widgery relied on photographs as realistic and authoritative artifacts to provide information about timelines and sequences, confirm participants and order their activities, and expose minute details, all of which were used to explain the past. Photographs were also used to provide evidence for ‘causal narratives of violence,’ and to allege and refute claims that marchers’ possessed weapons, including stones, nail bombs, petrol bombs, guns, and, in one instance, ‘a black, cylindrical object’ (Barcat, 2014; Hanna, 2015: 460, 467). ¹³ Hanna argues that, ‘Widgery and his team of barristers pushed against the meaning of photographs… they searched irregular patches of lights and shade on the edges and in the backgrounds in order to assemble plausible weapons in these images’ (2015: 476). Photographs taken by Grimaldi, and by French press photographer Gilles Peress were scrutinised to determine whether or not Duddy was armed. Widgery concluded ‘mere negative evidence’ for the presence of weapons; but, he believed that evidence to suggest that some men were armed, was convincing (1972; Ganderup, 2010). In analysing photographs, Widgery failed to acknowledge their emotional resonances, especially for victims’ families. Instead, Widgery ‘capitalised on the photographic emphasis on the dead and injured’ as a means of displaying the culpability of the deceased (Hanna, 2015: 462). Despite noting their value, no photographs were included in Widgery’s 45 page report; this absence may be explained by viewers’ ability to contest or contradict his finding.

Deposited as the official account in the National Archives (UK), Widgery’s findings were adopted wholesale by the British government and accepted by some unionists in Northern Ireland (Dawson, 2007). Widgery’s findings did little to dislodge the wedge that Bloody Sunday formed between unionist and nationalist communities. Some members of Northern Ireland’s unionist government maintained the Derry march was a cover for paramilitarism. John Taylor, [former] deputy leader, Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) insisted the dead men were ‘IRA gunmen’ (Dawson, 2005: 172; McCann, 2006: 18). ¹⁴ Northern Ireland’s Prime Minister, Brian Faulkner, condemned march organisers and dismissed calls by nationalists, for a new inquiry.

Nationalists agitated vigorously for a new inquiry. Some unionists opposed its establishment and alleged a new inquiry would demarcate a hierarchy of victims in the conflict; and, British soldiers who held fast to their version of events, were similarly opposed. ¹⁵ Based on previously unconsidered evidence, none of it photographic, the British government established a new inquiry into Bloody Sunday in January 1998 (Government of Ireland, 1997; McCann, 2006). ¹⁶ The Saville et al., Inquiry was conducted by three judges, appointed for their expertise in common law: Lord Mark Saville of Newdigate, [Great Britain], Judge William Hoyt, [Canada], and Sir Edward Somers, [New Zealand] who, upon his withdrawal in 2000, was replaced by Judge John Toohey, [Australia]. The Saville et al. Inquiry (2010a) sat for 432 days, over a 12-year period, and heard testimony from 921 witnesses. The inquiry’s 10 volume report includes a large number of photographs, some of them considered previously by Widgery. ¹⁷ At the Saville et al., Inquiry, photographs are used to establish and verify local geography, identify individuals and track their movement, distinguish points in time, support oral testimonies, and re-visit lingering questions about the presence of weapons (Barcat, 2014). A single image, referred to as ‘Father Daly’s gunman’, was contested, with no decisive ruling about whether it confirmed the presence of the armed marcher who was reportedly seen by Father Daly during Duddy’s evacuation (Saville et al., 2010b: 94, 101). ¹⁸ Its intense scrutiny at two successive inquiries likely called public attention to Grimaldi’s photographs.

Between the two official inquiries, Grimaldi’s photographs were circulated widely (Grimaldi and North, 1972). The iconic status of this one photograph, in particular may derive from the fact that it was the earliest photograph to circulate in print outside of Northern Ireland, although this status does not necessarily guarantee iconicity. ¹⁹ Emotional responses likely derived from the image’s ability to situate viewers at the front lines of the conflict and close to the events, in this case in the car park of the Rossville flats, in front of army barricades. Close proximity was also created for victims’ families, some of whom experienced it as a breach of familial privacy. Jackie Duddy’s brother, Michael Duddy alleges the sense of privacy his father valued highly was lost through the image’s repeated circulation, and that ‘the photo of Father Daly escorting my dying brother, as he was carried is something we learned to live with’ (Faus, 2007: 179).

Grimaldi’s image plays no visible role in conflict-related narratives or fields of vision in unionism. Although recognisable, its uses are limited to its status as evidence in official, state-led inquiries. However, there is a history of unionist opposition to Bloody Sunday commemoration. Londonderry/Derry City Councillor, Gregory Campbell Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) disputed the installation of a commemorative stained glass window in Derry’s Guildhall on the grounds that, ‘it disavowed the suffering of unionist communities and made no mention of many other victims of the conflict, particularly members of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), the RUC, and the British Army’ (Lawther, 2013: 157). Campbell, a 30-year veteran of City Council member, also declined to support an application, from the Bloody Sunday Initiative to host seminars on the topic of human rights (Conway, 2010a). ²⁰ Some unionist-organised events, such as a discussion about the meaning of Bloody Sunday planned for Derry’s predominantly Protestant, Waterside neighbourhood and which was cancelled, are indicative of these lasting inter-community divisions (Conway, 2010a: xxiii, 19). Unionist opposition also continues to be expressed through select action and inaction related to Father Daly, one of the iconic photograph’s subjects. Upon his death in August 2016, Northern Ireland’s First Minister, Arlene Foster (DUP) issued a public statement praising Daly’s service to his parishioners, but no unionist leader, Foster included, issued public expressions of sympathy (An Phoblacht/ Republican News, 5 September 2016). Some residents in Derry’s Waterside neighbourhood flew the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment (1PARA) flag, the unit responsible for the shootings, during Father Daly’s funeral (Derry Now, 12 August 2016).

Patricia Lundy and Mark McGovern contend that unionists view nationalists’ claims about state violence with ‘skepticism or outright hostility’ (2008: 51). Lundy and McGovern suggest that unionists oppose ‘truth-telling’ in Northern Ireland as a ‘Trojan horse’ for nationalist agendas, and as a vehicle through which the terms of union and the constitutional position of Northern Ireland in the United Kingdom may be opened (2008: 51). In textual accounts, some unionists juxtapose Bloody Sunday against the significant events of Bloody Friday, both of which are evoked to assign blame to the ‘other’ community (Simpson, 2008). ²¹ Some unionists also allege the creation of an ‘articulacy-inarticulacy narrative’ that privileges nationalist ‘narratives of injustice’ and renders unionist claims inarticulate (Lawther, 2012; Lundy and McGovern, 2008: 51). But, contrary to the suggestions about unionist inarticulacy, Kirk Simpson argues that Calvinist traditions of reticence around trauma and loss, along with a British ‘inquiry mode’ have silenced unionists (2008: 467). No plausible explanations are offered for the observation that unionists converse less often through visual narratives, evidenced by the fact that there are few recognisable, iconic images associated with unionist accounts of the conflict. ²² Ziya Meral argues that ‘forgetting is an intrinsic part of recollecting the past,’ and a function of imperfect recollection and the processes of identity assertion (2012: 45). Forgetting, then, is an unsurprising unionist response to Bloody Sunday, and its photographic presence and commemorative uses.

Remembrance, blame, action, commemoration: Nationalist responses

In nationalist communities, Grimaldi’s image is recognised widely as iconic. The image and its significance are rendered familiar through its wide-spread reproduction and circulation across various mediums, many of which are instrumentalised to recollect Bloody Sunday, recall its significance, assign blame, and instigate community calls to action, including commemoration.

This visual record of the first unarmed marcher to be killed on Bloody Sunday is reproduced as a large-scale, two-storey wall mural on Rossville Street in Derry. Painted by the Bogside Artists on a gable end, the mural is visible from the city walls, a landmark that marchers had intended to breech. ²³ This mural is one of 12 murals, two based on Grimaldi’s photographs, in a montage known as The People’s Gallery and that magnifies the historical and social significance of Bloody Sunday. The montage extends the full length of the now re-developed Rossville Street and marks this physical space as important in nationalist history. ²⁴ The murals build a sense of community ownership over shared narratives about nationalist struggles in Northern Ireland, and their size and scale invite intentional acts of viewing, spectacle, and meaning making for local residents and tourists (Conway, 2010a: 139; Dawson, 2005: 165). These images are a visual shortcut to telling and recollecting nationalist accounts of Bloody Sunday as a part of Northern Ireland’s contested history. They depict and magnify key figures, detail the effects of the British state’s policies and its Army’s actions, and portion blame for conflict and deaths.

In the mural of Jackie Duddy’s evacuation (Figure 2) a near-monochrome reproduction of the original photographic image lends it authenticity associated with its photographic form. It juxtaposes youthful innocence with British, military aggression. The non-descript backdrop of the Rossville Flats car park is transformed into a crowd of activists that add visual and narrative depth. The crowd is held back from the mural’s foreground by a visible cloud of CS gas, and adjacent to the crowd, civil rights leaders who stand under a black and white civil rights banner are similarly restrained from the mural’s foreground by the presence of an army jeep. These additions situate Duddy’s death in the presence of eye witnesses. The figure of an armed, British soldier is added to the mural’s foreground, polarising nationalist marchers from state forces. The 1PARA insignia, the unit responsible for the shootings, is visible on the soldier’s uniform. The bloodied banner of the [Derry] Civil Rights Association lays trodden under the soldier’s feet. Duddy’s injuries evoke viewer empathy and revulsion. At ground level, an iron fence and hedge provide physical fortification from those who are intent on disrupting the mural’s narratives through defacement. The mural’s narrative, however, is not without its critics. The depiction of a British soldier who was positioned outside the carpark is noted as a biased inclusion, and Nell McCafferty and Fionnbarra Ó Dóchartaigh criticise the montage for its exclusion of women (Conway, 2010a: 132). OPEN IN VIEWER

On a smaller scale, a colour-enhanced copy of Grimaldi’s photograph is also reproduced on the cover of Eamonn McCann’s book (Figure 3), The Bloody Sunday Inquiry: The Families Speak Out (2006).

McCann uses the image’s iconic currency as a call to action for Bloody Sunday families and their supporters. Published mid-way through the Saville et al., Inquiry, the book’s sub-title gives a voice to victims’ families, many of whom allege they were silenced during the Widgery Inquiry (Dawson, 2005: 170). After 45 years, the selection of this photograph is still emotionally evocative among members in a tight-knit community, many of whom are acquainted with Duddy’s family. On the book’s cover, Grimaldi’s image is cropped to re-centre the figures and present an uncluttered visual field to articulate a nationalist community narrative. The addition of a sepia tone references the original image’s authenticity. Sepia, a chemical compound used to stabilise black and white images and adjust tones to highlight contrasts, is applied to stabilise both the image and its narrative. Duddy’s death is displayed visually on the book’s cover as representative of all the deaths. These losses are intended to be a rallying point around which victims’ families can coalesce, even as McCann’s text outlines some of the families’ various points of disagreement around their continued trauma. Viewers are reminded of the importance of Saville et al.'s findings for rewriting future narratives about Bloody Sunday, and for the future of contesting nationalisms in Northern Ireland. OPEN IN VIEWER

Disruption of oppositional narratives: Artistic intercessions

Divisive narratives are challenged by some artistic intercessions. British-based artist, Robert Priseman and Northern Ireland-based artist, Rita Duffy reproduce Grimaldi’s iconic image in order to question its role in perpetuating inter-community fractures. British artist, Robert Priseman reproduces Duddy’s evacuation in his 2011 painting, The Troubles: Bloody Sunday, The White Handkerchief (Figure 4).OPEN IN VIEWER

Trained in photography, Priseman has an established reputation as a portrait artist whose recent art engages with controversial themes related to ‘killing process,’ including the physical spaces of Holocaust death camps and various methods of execution (Priseman, 2012). ²⁵ Priseman’s corpus of work includes four oil paintings of Northern Ireland’s conflict; two depict Bloody Sunday, and two depict the 1998 bombing at Omagh, Co. Tyrone. Priseman describes this particular painting as, ‘Father Daly attempting to escort the mortally wounded Jackie Duddy to safety,’ and notes it was reproduced from ‘a composite of three separate pieces of film’ (Howey, 2012; Iverson, 2008). ²⁶ Echoing Widgery’s assurances about filmic authenticity, Priseman says his intention was ‘to produce a definitive version [of events] which somehow captured and distilled the numerous versions [of this image] in circulation.’ ²⁷

Priseman employs specific visual techniques to make this scene a memorable object for contemplation without inferring cause, effect, or morality. For example, he shortens the distance between the men and the carpark wall, inserts a sidewalk curb to provide a domestic-like setting, and paints Duddy’s shirt red, the colour derived from historical accounts (Howey, 2012). These compositional changes conform to Ernst Gombrich’s observations about what makes an image memorable: the enlargement of central figures, simplification through the removal of background details, and intensification of colour (Gombrich, 1980). These changes also enhance the image’s iconic trait of closeness and situates viewers in this memorable event. By endeavouring to still its various versions, Priseman endeavours to distil its divergent meanings and resulting fractures, and he invites viewers to weigh their repercussions.

Similarly, Rita Duffy’s series of six oil paintings, each depicting a pared-down, single white handkerchief resting on the pavement, intentionally invites viewers’ introspection (Figure 5) (2006). OPEN IN VIEWER

Fiona Barber locates Cloth (2009) amongst a body of Duffy’s ‘unquiet relics’ that can be read as part of her ongoing visual commentary about cloth, history, and politics in Northern Ireland (2011: 17). Duffy’s visual commentary demonstrates the complexity of ‘the relationships between objects and narratives’ in Irish history (Howse, 2011: 18; O’Toole, 2013). In Duffy’s realistic depiction of the handkerchief, she situates viewers into this historical scene, inviting them to stand, metaphorically, on the pavement alongside the men who evacuate Jackie Duddy.

Duffy also invites a semiotic reading of the white cloth as the internationally recognised symbol of a truce in the context of bloodshed and war. This artistic reproduction of the scene interrogates the individual’s relationship to the conflict. It invites viewers to contemplate possibilities for reconciliation. Barber argues that the handkerchief exists as a relic – a material object with historical and sentimental meanings (2011). Instead of implying its obsolescence, its contemporary relevance and status are reinforced through this artistic reproduction and its accompanying memories, inquiries, and storytelling, and their contestation decades onward.

Both Priseman and Duffy immobilise the already familiar icon in the medium of oil, and they intercede in contemporary contestations over the status of Grimaldi’s icon by posing questions about viewers’ distance from the conflict and by inviting their introspection (Hariman and Lucaites, 2007: 189).

Conclusion: Bloody Sunday’s ‘Unfinished Business’

Initial reports of Bloody Sunday took various forms, including news broadcasts, print-based reports and pamphlets, including those published by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, Socialist Workers, and People’s Democracy. Much of this reporting was accompanied by press photographs that were intended to lend authority to textual accounts (Conway, 2010a; Ganderup, 2010). Other press reports avoided the use of photographs altogether. Sarah Ganderup notes that the Londonderry Sentinel did not report on the deaths until 2 February 1972, and its reporting avoided using photographs. It included only text-based statements from the Ministry of Defense (UK) and unionist politicians. Early divergent positions in the press were also evident in subsequent acts of remembering and forgetting, many of them connected to Grimaldi’s photograph and its iconicity.

Grimaldi’s visual icon retains its political significance as a recognisable shorthand for inter-community divisions and their continued political importance. As a visual icon, it instantiates the visual terrain on which nationalisms are expressed and contested. For example, the image continues to shape the present day appearance of Derry’s Bogside neighbourhood and it also moulds the city’s commemorative absences. Its contestations maintain levels of individual and community distrust – of the British Army, the British state, policing bodies, the judiciary, those whose expressions of nationalism are linked to paramilitarism and the foreign press. Collectively, distrust builds community affiliation and identity and also reinforces their distinction. Collective distrust is also formed and reshaped through remembrance. For example, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association viewed Bloody Sunday, commemoratively, as an act of ‘nationalist civil obedience’ (Conway, 2009: 398), whereas the nationalist political party, Sinn Féin viewed it, commemoratively, as an example of the British state’s ‘continued injustice against the Other’ (Conway, 2009: 399). Shared views about continued injustices construct Bloody Sunday, among some nationalists, as ‘unfinished business,’ the theme adopted by the Bloody Sunday Justice Campaign for the 2016 commemorative march, held six years after the publication of Saville et al.’s final report.

Analysis of this particular photograph may enhance theoretical understandings of photographic iconicity. Broadly, it expands the body and geography of visual icons (Kennedy and Patrick, 2014; Lukk and Doubt, 2015; Wilkes and Kehl, 2014) located outside of the limited focus on the United States of America, and raises questions about transnational understandings. Specifically, it takes up an iconic visual image as a ‘central projection point’ in Irish Studies (King and Sisson, 2014: 77). Reflecting on the relatively conservative construction of the field, Linda King and Elaine Sisson argue that Irish Studies typically privileges text over image and conceives cultural production narrowly (2014: 77). Analysis of this visual icon poses, as yet, unanswered questions about iconicity that reflect Irish Studies’ intense interest in transnational mobility and diaspora: Is iconicity limited by its geopolitical boundaries? How is iconicity theorised beyond those boundaries? How, for instance, might Grimaldi’s image be read (and contested) in the Republic of Ireland, or in England?

A limitation of this analysis is the fact that there are multiple images of Jackie Duddy’s evacuation. These multiple images include Grimaldi’s still image, as well as press photographs taken by other photographers stationed behind British army barricades, as well as footage taken by television film crews, including by Belfast-born, BBC cameraman, Cyril Cave. These images and recordings, taken from various angles and across varied points in time, raise questions about the iconicity of a single image in recalling and remembering these events. Grimaldi’s image has become memorable partly because of his willingness to retell its story, in print and in the context of official inquiries; however, this relationship between the image and photographer is likely to have changed over time as Grimaldi becomes more closely associated with its iconicity and with the events at Bloody Sunday generally.

Iconic status, Hariman and Lucaites argue, is acquired by the ability of icons to locate viewers in important historical moments, and through their ability to do so repetitively (2007). However, additional factors, such as the role of the photographer and the significance of materiality may also be at play. For example, viewers’ affinity may be enhanced by the biographical backstories about the iconic image’s photographer. This may affect (albeit to an unknown degree) viewers’ subjective recognition of, engagement with, and distance from the historical moments that are pictured. Grimaldi’s testimony at two official inquiries, his continued support for and engagement with Derry’s nationalist community, and his presence at various Bloody Sunday commemorative marches likely helps to ‘stretch’ the image and its meanings beyond their historical context and the limits of its frame. These relationships help to create visual shortcuts that caption this image as ‘Bloody Sunday.’ This abbreviation instigates remembering and forgetting. It recalls memories and influences perceptions that can aid in recollection. But, it memorialises one of the 14 shooting victims, and eclipses the deaths of 13 others; and, it immortalises a single moment and a single image, and casts other moments and images into the shadows.

Iconicity may be enhanced by materiality. In this case, specific items in Grimaldi’s photograph can help build recognition and association, and can also refocus their disregard. Father Daly’s ceremonial stole, the Derry Civil Rights Association banner, and the white handkerchief all still exist independently from their photographic representation. Father Daly chose to wear the same ceremonial stole on the 30th year anniversary of events at Bloody Sunday in Derry (Conway, 2010a). The Derry Civil Rights Association banner and Father Daly’s white handkerchief are displayed prominently in the Museum of Free Derry. Brian Conway suggests the bloodied Derry Civil Rights Association banner vies with the handkerchief for the status of the ‘most charged artefact of the museum’ (2010a: 125). ²⁸ O’Toole classifies Father Daly’s handkerchief as ‘perhaps the most emblematic object of a thirty year conflict’ (2013: 205). The white handkerchief rests on a glass shelf, not dissimilar from Duffy’s artistic impression of it, next to a tribute to Jackie Duddy. ²⁹ An enlargement of Grimaldi’s image forms the backdrop for its display, freezing this moment in the presence of these objects and their continued significance.

Although the legacy of photographic iconicity has received considerable scholarly attention, its durability has not. In the case of the image analysed here, existing understandings and visual codes appear resilient to change. For example, efforts by some nationalists to alter perceptions of Duddy, from passive victim to fighter, have not usurped the visual powers of iconicity and appear to have made few inroads.

In an alternative image that is offered, Jackie Duddy, positioned with his chin down, looks up from behind raised fists wrapped in boxing gloves. This pose offers a defiant counter to his status as a victim, builds links to Derry’s nationalist community by recalling Duddy’s status as a boxing champion with the Long Tower Boxing Club, and marks his inclusion in a family with a distinguished history in the sport (Faus, 2007: 127). The image of Duddy the boxer appears on the mural along the route of the annual commemorative march (Figure 6), and in a black and white photograph positioned next to Father Daly’s white handkerchief in the Museum of Free Derry. However, this alternative image has limited circulation and is not commonly associated with Bloody Sunday. OPEN IN VIEWER

Gail Baylis, citing Victor Burgin (1996), argues that ‘images are not transparent representations of the world but rather principal players of the stage of history’ (2012: 171). Future research might consider which images continue to shape representations of Northern Ireland and how their reproduction and circulation induces forgetting and remembering. Its conflict, and its contestation continue to reverberate through iconic images, few of which are scrutinised closely and considered for their political implications. Some 45 years after the events that it captures, Grimaldi’s photographs persists as a metonym for contested nationalisms. It continues to articulate divergent positions in a context where nationalisms are contested and where the events pictured are regarded as visual evidence of the necessity of Northern Ireland’s relationship to Great Britain, or as the need for a sovereign state, or as recognition of the timeliness of reconciliation. The scene of Duddy’s evacuation persists in instigating public engagement and collective political resistance. This photograph models and disrupts Hariman and Lucaites’ argument about the importance of visual iconicity for democracy. In Northern Ireland, some unionists continue to contend that democracy is undermined by organisations opposed to the British state, while nationalists contend that democracy is undermined by their continued oppression as a minority population in Northern Ireland. In both communities, the existence of paramilitarism and the ongoing activities of paramilitary organisations, who are officially ‘stood down’ while they also, unofficially, still ‘stand,’ also undermine the principles of democratic engagement. Grimaldi’s icon demonstrates the value of visual images as persistent, visible political resources that circulate, and that are recalled and curated selectively (Meral, 2012). Grimaldi’s iconic photograph remains a versatile tool through which communities continue to voice their pasts while also engaging in contemporaneous struggles to negotiate a new kind of future.