Paddy Coyle was only thirteen years old when he was photographed by Pulitzer-prize winner, Clive Limpkin in Derry, holding a petrol bomb and wearing an adult’s Second World War gas mask during the ‘Battle of the Bogside’ in 1969. Coyle would be immortalised as ‘the boy in the mask’, one of the most recognisable images of the Troubles; it remains as a building mural in Derry’s Bogside.
Limpkin would state that the badge worn by Coyle, showing an image of the whole of Ireland, encapsulated the entirety of the conflict.
Both Limpkin and Coyle died in 2020.
The Troubles 