Yesterdays Papers

Sean Lynch projects biography news contact

project index

previous

next

Yesterday's Papers

2008-

Yesterday’s Papers presents an overview of newspaper coverage of art and artists in Ireland in the last fifty years. Press photographs and articles are featured from national dailies and a selection of regional titles, along with contextual information on the events and moments recalled.

Initially produced as a publication in 2008, pages and information have since featured as large scale prints in galleries. With an emphasis on the social realities that cultural production has encountered in Ireland, several topics repeatedly arise: conservative reactions to the introduction of modern art into the country, vandalism of artworks, and the newsworthy character of artists with their many inventive ideas and schemes are all prominent.

Epson digital prints

Various dimensions

Publication

64 pages, 210 x 275mm

ISBN 978-0-9558630-0-4

Excerpt, page 18

Source: Irish Press, 25 October 1971

Head of Government, An Taoiseach Jack Lynch officially launched Rosc ‘71 at the Royal Dublin Society in Dublin. Before his address, William Belton, a student of the National College of Art, staged an impromptu speech to the large crowd present. The Department of Education, without a clear reason, had recently issued a directive that the College should close at 5pm each evening. Belton’s outburst was on behalf of the student body that staged a sit-in protest at the college the previous week. A Garda Superintendent threatened to put the students in jail for three years under the Forcible Entry Act. ‘You can imagine students being put in prison for wanting to keep their college open,’ Belton said, to loud applause and shouting from the back of the exhibition hall. In the address that followed, the Taoiseach referred to the outburst and said, ‘While there must be rebels in art there must also be authority and discipline.’ Belton is pictured on the far left of the picture, in front of Al Held’s painting B/W XIV.