Ciarán Walsh / www,curator.ie is currently working with Don MacMonagle on a piece for the Irish Independent on 100 years of photography by the MacMonagles of Killarney. A centenary exhibition opens in the Library in Killarney on 6 July 2013.
Ciarán Walsh and Con Collins at the launch of The Great Blasket, A Photographic Portrait. June 2013.
The definitive book of photographs of the Great Blasket Island has just been published by Collins Press. The book was authored by Michéal and Dáithí de Mórdha of Ionad an Bhlaoscaoid Mhóir and the photographs were edited by Ciarán Walsh of curator.ie. There are thousands of photographs in the archive of Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir/The Great Blasket Centre. They cover a wide range of material, from private mementoes of families to the work of folklorists, press photographers, and others. The first photographs on the Great Blasket were taken by Alma Curtin in 1891. For the next sixty years or so the islanders and the island would be photographed by all who visited, including the children of people who had emigrated. The result is an extraordinary chronicle of a way of life and kinship, of the life and death of the Great Blasket, evacuated in 1953 but never abandoned. This collection captures the spirit of the island community, from the excitement of discovery by the outside world in the late nineteenth century, through to the decline of the 1940s and the legacy since 1953. Many of these photographs have never been published before.
Micheál de Mórdha, Ciarán Walsh and Dáithí de Mórdha
The photograph shows the ‘Headhunter’ exhibition being installed in The National Museum of Ireland | Country Life in Turlough Park, Castlebar. It features a half plate field camera (c 1895 provided by Chris Rodmell) and a skull sitting on top of a display case while members of the museum’s staff hang the photographs of Charles R Browne in the background. The exhibition was developed by Ciarán Walsh of www.curator.ie and Dáithí de Mórdha of Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir,Blasket Centre, Dún Chaoin, with funding from the OPW and the Heritage Council. Séamas Mac Philib of The National Museum of Ireland | Country Life is the curator. The exhibition runs until May 2013.
For more information contact Country Life at
+353 94 903 1755
or
or visit the website at
http://www.museum.ie/en/exhibition/the-irish-headhunter.aspx
‘HEADHUNTERS’ IN TRIM
The ‘Headhunter’ exhibition has been touring the west of Ireland since May, starting in the Blasket Centre and moving through Aran, Connemara and on to Meath where it has just opened in the spectacular building that is the headquarters of the OPW – by architect Pat Boyle of the OPW and worth a look in itself. The Headhunter project was developed with support from the OPW.
It is on show there until the 14 December and this is the last chance to see the exhibition in the Pale. It moves back west in December when it goes on show in the National Museum of Ireland, Country Life in Castlebar.
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