Operation Cauldron 1952
Uncensored footage of the Lyme Bay Trials 1966
Project Cleansweep-dummybook
Project Cleansweep
Inside Porton Down-BBC- June 2016
Here is a link to the recent short documentary on a brief survey of the activities in Porton Down
Inside: Porton Down Britain’s Secret Weapons Research Facility
The Dorset Biological Weapons Experiments 1963-75
The Dorset Biological Warfare Experiments were conducted in the south Dorset area between 1963 -75. They took place under the control of the Microbiological Research Establishment from Porton Down. Numbering scores of individual trials, where both live and dead bacteria were sprayed from ships off the coast and from the air onto large sections of the surrounding countryside. Monitored by mobile detection sites at over 60 designated sites.
Four types of bacteria were used: E. Coli, Bacillus globigii, Bacterium aerogenes and Serratia marcescens.
Clusters of health abnormalities downwind from the test sites have been reported over the last 3 decades
The Defence Evaluation Research Agency said in recent years, “that they cannot rule out conducting larger scale trials in the future to try to ensure the protection of the UK from attacks by people of states using chemical and biological weapons”.
Here are a selection of the first photographs I took of the sites on my research trip recently. Lots more to follow. I promise…
26-Site 02 Portland Bill Dorset 2016
Site 47 Branscombe Beach Devon 2016
28-Site 25 Wareham Dorset 2016
Site 10 Langton Herring Dorset 2016
Site 55 Ottery St Mary Devon 2016
The Mike Kenner Archive
I got the chance to have 2 days recently with the Mike Kenner Archive in Bournemouth University with Prof. Neal White.
Once I have got the chance to sort out what I retrieved from the archive I will publish the material. Hoping to meet the man himself next week and to survey the sampling/detection site in Dorset next week. Lots to come
Press photo-Griunard Island
Came across this 1967 edition of the Mail on Sunday magazine. Had a short article referring to the island of Gruinard Island being contaminated for at least a 100 years
They cleaned it up in the late 1980’s/90’s. But you never can say never??
Exhibition: Where is the What if the What is in Why?
Where is the What if the What is in Why?
Susan Bone, Colin Crotty, Dara McGrath,
Eoin O’ Conaill, Killian O’ Dwyer, Claire Ryan
Opening via Sternview Gallery entrance on 26 Marlboro Street
Exhibtion Run: April 29th – June 11th
Where is the What if the What is in Why?* is a group exhibition exploring how artistic strategies investigate and represent peripheral and threshold spaces. These in-between places have long held magnetism for creative searching and experimentation. The histories and potentials that lie within such places may cast generative powers that can support reimaginings of our worldly connections. The exhibition title responds to the connective forces that attract such responses on transitional points, where things are hidden in plain sight or are not quite what they seem. It cues the varied artistic interactions – painting, photography, object-making and print – regarding how we live and our relations to objects and environments.
daramcgrath 