THE title of Dubliner Robert Ballagh’s painting, The 30th of January, is a deliberate allusion to Goya’s The Third of May.

While in Goya’s masterpiece Madrid is the background for the murderous executions of said date in 1808, in Ballagh’s canvas it is the Derry skyline.

Ballagh’s painting has been put on display at the Guildhall in Derry and will be will be unveiled to members of the Bloody Sunday families at a special event. It has been open to members of the public from January 14.

The exhibition is one of a series of events being organised across the city to mark the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday right through January 2022.

Both Goya and Ballagh’s canvasses focus on the victims — we see their anguished faces while the soldier executioners are faceless.

“Since I was acutely aware that I couldn’t possibly improve on Goya’s masterpiece I decided to refrain from interfering with his superb composition and instead to simply paint it in a contemporary style which would hopefully bring it to the attention of a wider audience,” explained Ballagh adding further: “In Goya’s painting the central cluster of victims demands your full attention; consequently I decided to replace them with the iconic image of Father Edward Daly with those carrying the body of Jackie Duddy.”

In Goya’s painting, too, a monk by the side of the rebel, offering support. A priest, Father Hugh Mullan, was among the dead at the Ballymurphy Massacre. The thematic associations are many.

“The soldiers in Goya’s firing squad are French soldiers on Spanish soil shooting Spanish people whereas, in my picture, the soldiers are obviously British soldiers on Irish soil shooting Irish people,” Ballagh stresses. He makes clear the marchers are unarmed.

The painting not only references Goya, but also Picasso’s Guernica. Like Picasso, Ballagh decided on a monochromatic palette.

The covered dead man’s hand in the centre foreground still holds the broken end of the “End Internment” placard, in much the same way as the slain man in Picasso’s painting grasps the broken sword.

Picasso and Ballagh’s black-and-white canvasses evoke newspaper and TV images of the time — Ballagh’s red of blood is but a synthesis of Bloody Sunday.

The killing was aforethought as the a sheet of paper under a paratrooper’s boot makes explicit: “I am coming to the conclusion that the minimum force necessary to achieve a restoration of law and order is to shoot selected ringleaders amongst the Derry Young Hooligans,” these are the words of Major General Robert Ford the Commander Land Forces, Northern Ireland at the time of the massacre.

By citing Ford Ballagh leaves viewers in no doubt that the killings were instigated at the highest level. In this respect the painting goes further than any inquiry has ever done.

In a wider sense, The 30th of January — like 3rd of May — charts the history of colonialism, occupation and people’s resistance. In that sense Ballagh’s painting is clear and by doing so demonstrates the need for politically engaged art.