Sunday 7th September will be the first day of a unique
photographic project in Athy organised by Athy Heritage Centre with the
co-operation of Athy Photographic Society and the people of the south Kildare
town. The project which is scheduled to
last for one week is intended to record in photographs and film the people of
Athy in their homes, at work and in their leisure hours and so create a
documentary archive of Athy town to be called ‘A Week in the Life of Athy’.
The project will be headed up by photographers from the local
Photographic Society, but will also include anyone with a camera who wishes to
be part of what is intended to be a highly important social documentary of our
time. The project primarily aims to
photograph the local people, the buildings of the town and the events which
will take place in Athy during the week commencing Sunday, 7th
September. Everyone with access to a
camera is encouraged to take part by photographing whatever scenes, people or
events they wish.
Family group photographs taken during that week are particularly
relevant in a project of this kind and every household is encouraged to
participate in the project by having a family photograph taken during the
week. If you know of some family or neighbour
who might not be able to have a photograph taken why not do it for them and
include it as part of your contribution to the project.
This week I am reproducing two photographs, the first of which shows
Matty Brennan in old age sitting on a stool at his front door in Offaly
Street. This was a common sight, well
remembered by many of us and the photograph was taken approximately 20 years
ago, just a short time before Matty died.
He was one of the great characters of Athy and will be remembered as the
courthouse caretaker and caretaker in the Catholic Young Mens Society when it
was based in St. John’s Lane.
The second photograph was taken in or about 1949 and shows a family
group in Shrewleen Lane. The Minch
Norton building is to the left of the photograph and on the right can be seen
some of the old two-roomed houses which were later demolished to accommodate
the old folks houses now located there.
The family group consists of John Carey and Tom Poole at the back and in
front Margaret Carey, Nell Poole with her son Anthony and Mary Roche standing
on the right. If you look closely at the
photograph you will see a trench which had been dug in the middle of the
road. I don’t know what work was going
on at the time but I’m sure many of the readers will recall what was involved.
Returning to the photographic project, because it is being operated
on a voluntary basis no payment will be made for photographs taken. Nevertheless everyone in the town is
encouraged to take a photograph or two, whether of their own family or a
neighbour or indeed anything that takes their fancy and submit them to the
Heritage Centre at the end of the project week.
Incidentally you can hand in printed photographs or CD’s of the
photographs taken. Either format will be
accepted to help create a photographic archive of life in Athy.
The photographs collected will be the subject of a future exhibition
in the Heritage Centre and hopefully many of the photographs will be included
in a book to be published at a later date.
The week long project will also hopefully provide a substantial
photographic archive which will in future years be an important source of
material for social historians.
No comments:
Post a Comment