Gallery: The alternative history of the Troubles

Machine-gun Christmas cards, underwear parties and a singing Ian Paisley: take a look at these snapshots of the conflict’s unseen side.

WE REMEMBER THE Troubles through atrocities, damage and death counts. But it was also a time when people in the thick of the conflict had to live their daily lives: listening to music, sending Christmas cards, going to parties.

Photographer Donovan Wylie and editor Timothy Prus dug through the archives for the mementoes that people across the North kept in scrapbooks. From the Rev Ian Paisley’s singing career, to festive greetings with machine guns, to snapshots of party guests in suspenders, they show a very different history of the Troubles – and how the political conflict infiltrated practically every element of life.

Donovan Wylie and Timothy Prus’ Scrapbook is published by the Archive of Modern Conflict/Steidl and is available here.

Gallery: Personal items from the Troubles

Gallery: The alternative history of the Troubles

Previous 1 / 11Next

The Troubles Scrapbook
The Troubles Scrapbook
A warning to British soldiers
The Troubles Scrapbook
...and one to loose-lipped republicans.
The Troubles Scrapbook
Prison parcels and newspaper clippings
The Troubles Scrapbook
All dressed up for a party
The Troubles Scrapbook
Earl Mountbatten, killed by the IRA in Sligo in 1979; and invitation to a regimental ball
The Troubles Scrapbook
Ian Paisley's dulcet tones
The Troubles Scrapbook
A prison souvenir
The Troubles Scrapbook
Not-so-merry Christmas cards
The Troubles Scrapbook
The Troubles Scrapbook
An Orange sash; snapshots of Stormont