Photographer Bill Kirk described as “amazing” meeting as a man the boy he captured in an image more than five decades ago.
Noel McKay, who said he was 10 when the photograph was taken, was front and centre of the image reproduced on the front page of The Irish News on Thursday.
Bill met Mr McKay at the launch of his new book, The Falls, which features 163 images taken on the road over a 17-year period from 1966 to 1983.
“The first that struck me is the centre piece of the front page...just to get meeting Noel nearly 55 years later was just amazing,” Bill said.
“I was nearly in tears when this McKay fellow appeared.”
The book launch formed part of the Heritage Community Engagement Day, organised by the Belfast Archive Project and held at St Comgall’s on Divis Street on Friday.
People packed the centre and brought their own photographs and other items to add to a Research, Interpretation and Exhibition of a Shared Photographic Archive initiative, supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Frankie Quinn, of the Belfast Archive Project, said: “I didn’t realise how big a collection Bill had of pictures from the Lower Falls and that is where this publication came from.
“There are so many different stories from each photo and I know a lot of people will relate to them.”
Bill met other old friends at the launch, including triathlete Dessie McHenry and others “with a similar mindset as regards politics, that is to say sort of socialist”.
Now 86, Bill began his career in photography in the 1960s and is known for his singular collection of images taken in Sandy Row in the 1970s.
But then Frankie Quinn, as part of the genesis of the book, raised the photographer’s multiple trips to the Falls over nearly three decades.
“Frankie did not like the idea of me being known just as a loyalist photographer,” Bill joked. The previously unseen images were printed in recent times from a store of black and white negatives.
“I am just tickled by the sheer number of signings I did. My hand has still not recovered.”
Noel McKay confirmed he is featured at the centre of the image of a group of young boys taken in 1970. He was 10.
Mr McKay said the photographs in the book are “class” and that the publication will be passed down the generations.
