9 August 2008 Off the back of tendering for a community art project in Ballymagroarty I attend the Relief of Derry Parade with Peter McCaughey. At our meeting with a council representative in a café opposite the Guildhall, I can’t help noticing people in the shops ignoring the spectacle of thousands of bandsmen marching only a hundred yards away.
12 December 2008 — 7 February 2009 Bloomberg exhibition. Martin Herbert writes ‘the Black Skull’s members gaze implacably out, latently asking for connection: and we come to recognise that none of us are defined by our alignments, while being reminded of the degree to which, from the outside, we typically are’.
26 October 2008 Via a commission for Bloomberg SPACE in London on the subject of group portraiture, I approach the band and invite them to let me take their individual portraits and present the series under a title suggested by their bandmaster: ‘Scottish by Birth, British by the Grace of God’.
9 April 2009 During my research on the Ballymagroarty project, I find a treasure trove of newspaper clippings on the Relief of Derry Parade in the city library. A wide range of opinion are expressed from ‘Take your parade elsewhere’ the request of Donncha MacNiallais of the Bogside Residents’ Group in the Derry Journal 17 December 1996, to ‘Mad Dog Adair for Boys parade’ from the former commander of the Ulster Freedom Fighters in 11 July 2000.
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