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Posts Tagged ‘Photography’

W.D Hogan’s run comes to an end.

Posted in Dublin History, Events, Social History, tagged , , , , , , , on May 10, 2010| Leave a Comment »

May 24th marks the end of the National Library of Ireland’s wonderful W.D Hogan photo exhibition at the National Photographic Archive. Below are two samples from the NLI Facebook page to promote the exhibition, and I’ve also included a wonderful W.D Hogan snap of Liam Mellows delivering the oration at Bodenstown cemetery during a Wolfe Tone commemoration.

Opening times are below the images, seize the day and get into this one before it’s too late. Due to the nature of W.D Hogan’s work (He was in the company of the Free State Army during much of the civil war) there is, of course, a greater amount of images from one side of the civil war conflict than the other, but it is the shots of civilian life that make this exhibition what it is.


“Man examining remains after the fire at the Custom House, 26 May 1921”


“National Army troops shell the occupied Four Courts”


Liam Mellows addresses rally at Bodenstown, County Kildare.

National Photographic Archive, Temple Bar.
Mon – Fri: 10am – 5pm
Saturday: 10am – 2.00pm

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Ghost-ly Estates

Posted in Dublin History, Miscellaneous, Social History, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 25, 2010| 1 Comment »

With the government set to introduce measures to tackle the growing problem of ghost and unfinished estates that have blighted many parts of the country, I’ve been musing over a few pieces that discuss how many vacant or half built estates there are out there. And to be honest, the result is shocking; It does go someway to explaining why the economy has gone arse over tits, when it placed it’s future on a building industry that was obviously over-supplying a demand that was sure to run out; A recent report by the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Planning estimated that there were over 600 “ghost estates” and a figure of 300,000 empty, newly built properties in Ireland. Mainly located in the midlands and west of the country in towns that were heralded as “commuter” and “gateway” towns like Mullingar and Tullamore, they were built to serve a steady stream of workers who, rather than pay the extortionate property prices in Dublin, preferred to pay the slightly less extortionate prices and commute the couple of hours every day. Madness.

What does this have to do with “Dublin Life & Culture” I hear you ask? Well, for while the Irish landscape is littered with ghastly looking ghost estates, we have ghostly looking mansions, castles and buildings of historical importance that are left to the throes of time also. “Abandoned Ireland” is a website I’ve been championing for a while now. The website is a personal project, started in June 2008 by Tarquin Blake. The idea is to document these buildings before age and rot erase them from our landscape forever. The website has the tagline; “Record it. Document it. Before it’s gone; Touch nothing. Take nothing. leave only footsteps.”

Bolands Mill, as Dev left it? Credit: Tarquin Blake, Abandoned Ireland

Phoenix Park Magazine Fort. Credit: Tarquin Blake, Abandoned Ireland.

I’ve spent hours trawling this website, there are some fantastic pictures here, covering everywhere from Bolands Mills and the Magazine Fort in Phoenix Park Magazine Fort (two examples above) to abandned mines in Wicklow. You wonder somehow, in two hundred years, will the ghost estates of Dublins sattelite towns induce the same sense of wonder as the buildings AI is documenting? Somehow I doubt it.

Check out www.abandonedireland.com.

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Snapshots Of A Troubled History.

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on January 16, 2010| 1 Comment »

A WD Hogan snap of a Dublin Republican barricade

An interesting exhibition in Temple Bar, of the photography of W.D Hogan taken between 1920 and 1923, taking in the Tan War and the Civil War. During work experience as a youngster in Collins Barracks I got a unique insight of the Cashman Archive, taking in the work of Joseph Cashman in the ‘revolutionary years’ with fantastic images from Dublin in particular at the time. Cashman got many great shots of the personalities and forces of the time, including both the Citizen Army and the Irish Volunteers.

This exhibition, opening on the 16th of January, is of different stock. Here, there is a particular emphasis on the ordinary people of the city and country, as war raged around them. Hogan was given the official sanction of Sinn Féin during the Tan War, and later that of the state army.

The National Photographic Archives site observes that

The 167 photographs featuring in the exhibition were compiled by Captain Rev Denis J Wilson, Chaplain to the Free State army during the 1920s.

Interestingly, the exhibition contains photos of state-forces entering Cork after the fall of the ‘Munster Republic’, the last stronghold of republicans holding out against the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and photos of the burning of Balbriggen by Black and Tans, along with shots of iconic events like the burning of the Custom House and the assault on the Four Courts.

Opening Hours (Runs until May 24th)
National Photographic Archive, Temple Bar

Mon – Fri: 10am – 5pm
Saturday: 10am – 2.00pm

Fantastic images of the 1913-22 period can be viewed at the National Library Digital Collection

Spot Kevin Myers Grand Uncle, Captain Myers of the DFB

Businss As Usual, 1922

Dublins YMCA ablaze in '22

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