In honor of our recent book launch of The 1950's Ireland in Pictures and for those who were unable to make it, we are going to highlight some of the photographs that were in the exhibition on Wednesday night! We enjoy sharing out historical photos with everyone-everyone seems to take something different from what they see.
The Book Launch and exhibition took place in the Royal Hibernian Academy and consisted of 40 historical photos from our archive. These photos covered political, social and business events, to name a few, and seemed to mean different things to the different people that attended. It always amazes us how a single photo can mean so many different things to so many different people.
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This is a photo from October 6th 1952. Here we see Gypsies in a traditional horse-drawn, highly
decorated wagon arriving at the Ballinasloe Horse Fair.
Our next historical Irish photograph was taken on the 14th of October, 1952. Picture of Afternoon tea in Castlebar. Rita Quinn, neé
Hughes (centre) and Frances Hughes (right) having tea in the Green Bay Cafe on
the mall in Castlebar with a friend after a journey to Dublin where both sisters were working as
chemists. They didn’t realise the photo was being taken. Rita still has her
shop on Main Street, Castlebar and Frances is retired from being a locum
pharmacist at Mayo General hospital.(Information supplied by Aoibhinn Ní
Shúilleabháin)
Happily, Rita Quinn and Frances Gannon were able to attend the book launch!
From left to right is Susan Kennedy, owner of Lensmen Photographic Agency and
The 1950's Ireland in Pictures, Frances Gannon and Rita Quinn.
Our next photograph was taken on August 4th 1953 and is of fashion designer Neillí Mulcahy (left) as she heads
off on her travels. Trained in Paris, Mulcahy was noted for her innovative use
of Irish fabric, including tweed. She was one of the founders of the Irish
Haute Couture Group which aimed to promote Irish fashion abroad.
We were very lucky that An Taoiseach was able to find time to launch The 1950's Ireland in Pictures
Hear the speech An Taoiseach gave at the launch of
The 1950's Ireland in Pictures here.
Another celebrity that we were blessed with during our launch was Dr. Ronnie Delaney, the Olympic gold medalist.
We were incredibly pleased that Dr. Delaney was able to attend, particularly because one of the photographs in the exhibition was of his triumphant return from the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne.
The last picture we will share with you via our blog is one of our personal favorites. This historical photograph is of Brendan Behan in Connemara with his family.
If you would like to see more photos from the launch please visit our
facebook page and if you would like to view more pictures from the book please visit our
website.
A huge thanks to everyone who was able to attend the event and help make our book launch a success! For those who were unable to attend, you were greatly missed and we hope you take a little time to browse our website so that you too may enjoy the extraordinary and historic images of Ireland in the 1950's.
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