In May of this year, a group of of some 75 photographers from around the world traveled to Ireland. They focused their lenses on the people of Ireland, spanning the island from the Glens of Antrim to the Ring of Kerry, shooting more than 5,000 rolls of film-180,000 photographs in the course of a single 24-hour time period.
Of the thousands of photographs taken on that day, 225 of the best will be featured in A Day in the Life of Ireland, a large-format hardcover book to be published this November, by Collins Publishers, San Francisco.
“The great challenge of this book and our mandate is to show the real Ireland now. There are so many clichés about Ireland. So many people outside of the country think of it as a country of sheep farmers and rolling hills. We will be seeking spectacular images, but we are not in the picture postcard business,” so said Patti Richards, vice president of Collins Publishing, who spent several weeks in Ireland working on the project prior to the shoot.
Well guess what. There are quite a few shots of rolling hills and sheep in this book. In fact, one of the photographs we chose to bring you in this sneak preview is of one young modern farmer who uses his motorbike to herd the animals on his 200 acre farm. And one of the shots we narrowly missed including is of a businessman dashing across a field heavily populated with woolly creatures to where his private plane awaits him. Modern Ireland indeed. Sometimes clichés come about because they are true. As Hungarian photographer Péter Korniss found out. “I was wondering why people were smiling in my photographs. Then I realized that it wasn’t because I made them smile, but because they are really open.”
Thankfully, art knows no boundaries and the A Day in The Life people chose to photograph Ireland with no borders. For one day at least, Ireland was united. The North was not annexed for A Day in The Life of The United Kingdom series. And the South does not stand alone as a 26-county republic. How great it would be if the people of Ireland could be brought together as simply as they are brought together in the pages of this book.
Irish American writer Bob Callahan in his introduction to the book includes this conversation with British photographer Barry Lewis who spent most of his day in County Antrim with members of the Orange Order. In the evening his hosts threw a small party in his honor. People gathered in someone’s kitchen, and the party went on until 5:00 in the morning. What surprised me was how close the farmers- the working farmers, whether they’re Catholic or Protestant-can be when they’re playing music. There is this kind of musical link. There was one fiddler-he was clearly the best musician- and I’m sure he was Catholic. But we never talked about it. We talked about everything else. It was 5.00 a.m., and everyone was still talking. It was lovely.”
The A Day in the Life of Ireland group have done an admirable job in capturing the character, charm and diversity of the Irish people, it would make a wonderful addition to anyone’s library and as a special offer to Irish America readers, the book, which retails at $45 can be obtained for $36 per copy plus sales tax, by calling 1-800-331-3761 and giving the order number C01615.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in the October 1991 issue of Irish America. ♦
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