The photographs are like black and white time machines that bring back the desolation and danger of the Troubles. The images have a documentary accuracy, but it is the aura of melancholy witness that marks them as the work of Sean Hillen. --Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize recipient

Striking, haunting sometimes bleakly beautiful: a record of historical importance but also much more. --Roy Foster, author, The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland

Melancholy Witness is the published collection of the images of Sean Hillen's lauded exhibition of photography, documenting the years of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Combining personality with documentary history, what emerges is a powerful and compelling story of unrest, beauty and change.