Curious Ireland

If you start to see a lot of colour photographs popping up on our website and social media sites from now on, don’t be surprised. We have started a collaboration with Curious Ireland, a collection of photographs of monuments, historical buildings, tourist attractions and heritage sites across Ireland.

Curious Ireland is the creation of Emmet McLaughlin, a Donegal man who travels the length and breadth of the country for his job. On his travels, he noticed how many fabulous ruins, ancient burial sites and historical buildings there are in every county in this country. He started noting their location and returning to take photographs.

Kilclooney Dolmen, Donegal

However, as you will quickly notice as you browse through his photos, Emmet only took photographs on clear, sunny days when the light was just right. This was not just a matter of turning up, snapping a picture, and continuing on with his journey. Sometimes, Emmet ended up waiting for hours for the clouds to clear or the light to hit the building at the right angle.

Emmet is also a bit of a historian, and has found out the background of all the places he has photographed. While information on well-known places such as Newgrange or Monasterboice, there’s a lot less information readily available on places like the Bottle Tower in Churchtown, Dublin or the Ardmore Gallen Stone in Muff, Co. Donegal.

This in-depth background information can be found on the Curious Ireland website, www.curiousireland.ie, which also features an interactive map of Ireland showing the location of everything Emmet has photographed. The purpose of the collaboration between the Irish Photo Archive and Curious Ireland is to help ease the process for anybody wishing to purchase either print or a digital copy of one of Emmet’s fabulous photos. Both sites will be interlinked, making the process seamless for our audience from both sides.

We’re very excited about the opportunity to work with Emmet and Curious Ireland. The archive was christened the “Irish Photo Archive” because Seán Walsh, our MD, intended on expanding the business by adding other collections from across Ireland. This collaboration with Curious Ireland is the first step along this road, and we hope there’s a very long, smooth road ahead of us. We’d love to have your company along the way as well.