Willie Doherty has been creating work that deals with the situation in Ireland known as the Troubles since the mid-1980s. Ghost Story employs the Irish landscape, expanding it into literal space and time by adding sound and moving imagery. A non-linear text, narrated by the renowned Irish actor Stephen Rea, variously describes acts of military violence against unknown people, apparitions warning of death and danger, and other surrealist-like visions; while a hand-held camera at one point pans down a country road that runs parallel to a body of water before veering into other mysterious scenes. Doherty emphasizes the haphazard nature of seeing and hearing, in other words, the unreliability of how we comprehend and understand the world. Taking no overt side in the conflict, Doherty rather presents with this work a non-narrative tale of danger, surveillance, and menace.

Adapted from

Charles Wylie, DMA unpublished material, 2008.

• Vimeo
  Watch a clip of Willie Doherty's Ghost Story.
• BBC History
  Learn more about the Troubles.
• Queens University Belfast, School of History and Anthropology
  Listen to podcasts about the the Northern Ireland civil rights movement.