Powerful press photographs documenting some of the world’s defining stories of the past year will go on display at Queen Maeve Square in Sligo later today.
Organised by Sligo County Council, the World Press Photo exhibition forms part of Ireland’s cultural programme marking its Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
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The free outdoor exhibition will run from 14 August to 11 September, with the photographs presented across 16 scaffolding towers in Queen Maeve Square.
Visitors can follow self-guided tours using QR codes, available in several languages, to explore the stories behind 118 images selected from the annual World Press Photo Contest.
The contest received 57,376 entries last year from 3,747 photographers representing 141 countries, with 42 winners ultimately chosen.
The overall World Press Photo of the Year 2026 was awarded to ‘Separated by ICE’, photographed by Carol Guzy for the Miami Herald.
Guzy made the image inside a Federal Building in New York, one of the few US federal buildings where photographers were allowed access.
It captures the forced separation of a family by state agents after US immigration officers detained an Ecuadorian migrant following a court hearing last August.
The man, whom his family says had no criminal record and was the household’s sole provider, was taken away from his wife and children.
Carol Guzy said the recognition underlined the global significance of the family’s story.
“We bear witness to the suffering of countless families, but also to their grace and resilience that transcends adversity that has been quite humbling,” she said.
Joumana El Zein Khoury, executive director of World Press Photo, said the photograph depicts children grieving the loss of their father in a place she described as “built for justice”.
She said it provided a stark and essential record of family separation linked to US reform policies, as well as “a powerful example of why independent photojournalism matters”.
The two finalists were ‘Aid Emergency in Gaza’ by Saber Nuraldin and ‘The Trials of the Achi Women’ by Victor J Blue.
‘Aid Emergency in Gaza’ shows Palestinians scrambling onto an aid truck carrying flour into Gaza through the Zikim Crossing.
Nuraldin captured the scene on 27 July 2025, during what the Israeli military described as a “tactical suspension” of operations intended to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
The World Press Photo Jury said the photograph makes the scale and urgency of famine during the war’s second year in Gaza visible.
Saber Nuraldin, who took the photograph, was born in Gaza and has documented life there since 1997.
The World Press Photo Organisation has said that more than half of the approximately 94 journalists killed while working across 15 countries last year died in Palestine.
In northern Central America, Guatemala’s civil war resulted in the genocide of thousands of Maya Achi people at the hands of the military and local state-backed paramilitary forces.
Victor J Blue’s other finalist, ‘The Trials of the Achi Women’, published by The New York Times Magazine, portrays Doña Paulina Ixpatá Alvarado, a plaintiff who was held captive and assaulted alongside fellow Achi women outside a court in Guatemala City.
On 30 May 2025, three former civil defence patrollers in Guatemala received 40-year prison sentences for rape and crimes against humanity.
For 40 years, Indigenous Maya Achi women were forced to live in the same communities as the men who had raped them.
Fifteen years ago, 36 women broke their silence and began a 14-year legal campaign that ended in victory against their abusers.
The World Press Photo jury said the portrait captured a moment of collective strength as the women’s long pursuit of justice reached its conclusion.
It said the photograph’s classical and restrained composition foregrounded the women’s dignity and authority, deliberately challenging historical depictions of survivors of sexual violence as powerless subjects.
The Sligo exhibition will be the only Irish venue for the 2026 edition and marks the first time the show has returned to Ireland since 2014.
Founded in the Netherlands in 1955, World Press Photo is an independent non-profit organisation dedicated to supporting photojournalism and documentary photography.
The organisation said the stories featured in the exhibition shed light on the realities experienced by people across the globe.
