The Belfast Archive Project welcome you to the third and final exhibition in our curated programme for 2025 for the Ulster Museum The Bell Archive in collaboration with The Heritage Lottery Fund and PRONI.
These extraordinary images are a fraction of the archive of photographs taken by Nelson Victor (born 1897), James Kennedy (born 1900), Herbert (born 1904), and Benjamin Jonathon Bell (1907), four brothers who shared many interests, such as photography, science, art, antiques, ornithology and boats.
We believe that most of these photographs were taken by James Kennedy Bell in 1950 during a trip along the West coast of Ireland. The brothers travelled extensively in the west of Ireland from the 1930s to the 1950s, often by caravan. They took a large number of photographs on their holidays.
“There was always the great expeditions to take the photographs… it always seemed to be Uncle Nelson, Uncle Jim and my father… we would stop all over the place taking photographs, and then the boys would get restless… we would have to stand by while we waited for another cloud to drift pass so that the cloud formation was perfect.” (Alan Bell) The photographs capture the reality of life in rural Ireland, where the mode of transport was the donkey, fuel was turf, most people were barefoot and the language was Gaeilge. The Bell archive also includes colour Kodachrome, 8mm and 16mm moving film, material Belfast Archive Project are actively scanning and processing. We would encourage the public to help us with the research by identifying any places or landmarks they recognise in these photographs.
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