Judith Hill examines the political content of Robert Ballagh’s survey exhibition at the Hunt Museum, Limerick
As an artist Robert Ballagh has been a witness to history. But he has done more than record and comment His political conscience has prompted him to engage. and out of this, he has produced succinct and powerful images of Irish history. But even more significantly he consistently championed democratic values when Ireland was challenged by sectarian violence from the 1970s, to the mid-1990s, and by the explosive economic success of the Celtic Tiger years and its aftermath.
Ballagh, born in 1943, has long been a non-violent Republican. His political views were forged in the late 1960s against the background of the civil rights movement and the eruption of violence in the North of Ireland. He has worked for peace both covertly, and openly as chair of the Irish National Congress. As President of the Ireland Institute, he has championed democracy and citizenship. Ballagh has lent himself as an artist to these causes, adonting apparentlv contradictory roles.
