This book documents a process, the gathering of a community group of interest at Tubber Hall in 2015-16. Beginning with the work of American photographer Dorothea Lange in County Clare in 1954, we explored ideas of place, of identity and how the photograph can serve to preserve both individual and collective ideas of what memory, as it relates to the local can mean. Each member of the group developed his or her own way of using the photograph to navigate, discovering how remembering can become a real journey through place, prompted by the visual trigger of the image to enable mnemonic return. The townland of Kilkeedy was the site of departure, for walking the land, sharing stories and discovering the potential of the photographic to become a shared space of recollection. The project was initiated and facilitated by artist Martina Cleary, with the support of a Creating Space Grant from The Clare County Arts Office 2015.
Anne O'Donnell Michael O'Donoghue Tess Diviney Bernie O'Grady Colm Mac Lochlainn Michael O'Connor Michael Keane Martin Kiely In collaboration with Martina Cleary
Anne O'Donnell
Images of toys I had as a child. Images of the fields in front of the house which we always called the lawn, but was really a field, and the cattle on it. That was always there. The farming implements, the churns, having cows meant having milk and butter and selling it. That was our life as children. We were fully involved in that life and we had to help, but we didn’t really have play stations, computers, toys. We had books, we weren’t that interested in reading for a long time. But the working life of the land was what we spent our days doing really and helping. Looking at the old sewing machine my mother made all our clothes on. She made my dresses and coats. She made my brothers trousers and did a lot of knitting. The churns as I say, they made butter which was sold. That paid the household bills. There’s and old iron there, that had a weight in it, that you had to heat in the range. It would be red hot and you had to take it out with a long handled tongs and pop it into the iron to iron the shirts for the men for Sunday. Which was the only time they wore an ironed shirt really. Yes, it’s mostly things that I selected to photograph. I’ve only got one brother because my father died when I was very young. Everybody else of my years, they’re just not here anymore. Well I’m turned seventy, so a lot of them have gone. They emigrated and some of them died. When I look at the older family photographs, it’s what we were doing, like playing with cats or dolls. That was a neighbour there, I think it was Christie Mullins. We would play for hours with simple things like that, and the dolls prams will be thereabouts. There’s an old kettle there that sat on top of the range and was boiling all day.
Memory Objects, by Anne O'Donnell (2015).
Image of Anne's mother (1942). (Right) The Former Family Home in Kilkeedy by Anne O'Donnell (2015). My mother was a very strong character, a slight woman but very strong, bossy, but kind when people were in trouble, like deaths and illness or accidents. She was very good with stock and had a lovely herd of Galway ewes which she would lamb herself in the Spring. She had cattle and we had one person, a cousin who lived in and worked, and had to be paid every week which she often found a strain. But her one thing when I was growing up was that my brother was going to work the land, but I was going to get away and have a better life than the land demands of you. She was about thirty-seven when she became a widow. She married when she was thirty-three and my father was fifty. She never had any intention of marrying again, because she had her life there. My mother would have stock to sell, but women weren’t allowed, it was the tradition. As with Irish folklore there’s very little written down, it’s all word of mouth. Normally women had family, brothers or very often if it was a young widow, her father would do the trading for her. Women were just not allowed to trade, in anything. But my mother was well able to cope. She was very quick and had cuteness about trading, through sheer necessity. She died in hospital at eighty-one and had made a good living off the land. I was sent to Seamount, the boarding school in Kinvara. Strange to say my brother would have loved to have gone out into the world. He would have been very good at engineering. All I wanted to do, and this is why I’m back here now, is stay. I never wanted to leave. But even though she was a woman running the farm, she would have never thought of handing it onto me, and letting my brother go to school. She always said, it was no work for a woman, it was too hard. But you see it was all hard, physical work then. Today any woman can drive any machine as well as a man. My mother never thought of marrying again. She liked her land, and once she got the hang of it she really enjoyed managing it.
Memory Journey through the former Family Home by Anne O'Donnell (2015).
Of Lange’s images, the ones that evoke most memory for me include those of a woman standing looking out the door about to leave. And there’s another of the postman, he was so important. The two girls, Catherine and Anne O’Halloran in front of the kitchen dresser. Those fancy jugs were actually what they called jam mugs. When jam was sold at that time you bought those and they were full of preserved jam, and then you had the jug afterwards. These photographs all evoke memory. The hands of Eleanor O’Halloran, born in 1871. She’s obviously a very old lady but her hands are quite big, but it’s purely from hard work.
Anne O'Donnell in her Kitchen in Kilkeedy and (left) with her son James O'Donnell, collaborative portraits with Martina Cleary, in response to selected images by Dorothea Lange including, Nora Kenneally with her youngest son Michael at the home near Cloonanaha (1954) & Kenneally’s (Farm Scenes, House Interior) (1954).
Michael O'Donoghue
Images of the stone walls on my farm, walls that are there for over two hundred years. They’re only on the limestone plateau because we moved all the walls on the grazing area before that. Well you see they represent a sense of history and some things we have lost. In the old days our farm would have had a massive amount of walls, but in the spirit of increasing farm output, they were removed from the arable areas in the 1970’s. The memories of the walls in the fields bring back hardship, raising stones and stock, bushes and briars growing beside them. Now on the limestone pavement there isn’t sufficient soil for them to grow, and the walls are nice to look at, and not difficult to maintain. I possibly was at the fair in Tubber that day when Lange passed through. I wouldn’t have been one of the attractions, she was concentrating on older people. I would have been twelve years old at the time, so a sightseer at the fair rather than an active participant. I was born in 1939, and have been here every year since. Her images bring back memories of the type of clothes, the vests the farmers wore, and the inadequacy of those clothes for the weather. Heavy cold coats with no rainproof garments. Also pictures of people walking to mass, which were taken back near Inagh. The numbers that were going to mass back then, and how it has changed in a short lifetime. Very little is the same today. The biggest example is the population that was here then. It has really disappeared in many areas since. People have emigrated. Our population in this area is now about four hundred. We have figures going back to four thousand in 1880. There were nine hundred in 1961. A lot of people have moved into the area that are not from here, but if it were not for them, then the population would be much worse. The house where I was born, my father and my grandfather and my great-grandfather lived in it. I’m not too sure if my great-grandfather was born there, but he definitely lived in that place. At the time farmers were tenants, so they moved around more. We located some remnants of our family in other areas. One of the anomalies is what happened to our name. In the 1950’s when there was a revival of the Irish, the O’ was re-introduced to O’Donoghue, whereas in all the official documents it would still be Donoghue. And all the graveyards and gravestone names are Donoghue. I think it was a pity that the name changed, I’d have preferred if it hadn’t, but it’s built in now and there isn’t much you can do. It came from the Irish, but we have census records of 1855 and 1824 and the name used was Donoghue. The biggest change, looking at Lange’s work is of course manual labour, it has almost disappeared. Machinery and electronics have changed the type of farming we're doing completely. The income of a farmer was based on the amount of labour that was used in those days, because their best paying crops were either market garden, sugar beet, or corn. When machinery wasn’t as advanced, it was manual labour that produced everything. And of course horses were essential, with harvesting being by far the most important thing. It was the test of your strength, your income and your ability to farm within the year. The amount of food you could produce at harvest time, would feed livestock also. The people were absolutely dependent on it.
A Traditional Goat Pen preserved on the farm in Kilkeedy, by Michael O'Donoghue (2015).
Michael O'Donoghue on his way to Limerick Jail, after being arrested for his participation in the IFA march for local farmers rights in 1967.
Photographs of harvest time in Kilkeedy in the 1950's, from the Taffe Family.
Michael O'Donoghue, collaborative portrait with Martina Cleary (2016). (Right) Images of stone walls and traditional ways of building on his farm in Kilkeedy, by Michael O'Donoghue (2015).
Walking the land with Michael O'Donoghue, Spring (2016), Collaborative portraits with Martina Cleary.
Stacking the Turf by Tess Diviney (2015).
Tess Diviney
The bog photos bring back memories of my childhood. We would get ourselves ready for the journey. Women made the tea and sandwiches, we had currant cake and put these in a bag ready for the day. My father would ask a few neighbours to give him a hand, and children automatically went. The bank was cleared off with a spade and the sleán was used to cut the turf. Then that was laid up on the bank, and then made into stughs. It was left for a number of months or so until it was dried out, then formed into reeks. It was a big preparation and our fueling for the winter, which was either wood or turf. We didn’t use coal, so we depended on this. Lange’s photographs of making the hay brought back memories as well, because it was then cut with a finger mower. My father had a tractor so he cut for the neighbours as well. At about three or four in the morning he began for himself, and that was let lie for a day or so, then we turned it. Again we had a big mehal, and on a good sunny day we’d tram all the hay. The women of the house brought the food to the meadow, and when we went down we were asked to pull the butt of the tram, and make sugáns for over it. This tied down the tram in case of a storm or wind. It was then left in the meadow to season. About six weeks later it was brought home, and that was another big event. The men brought it in. Some would fork the hay, others push it in out around the eye of the shed, until it was full. That was our hay saved for the season, to keep the cattle over the winter.
Tess and Tony Diviney on their farm near Gort, collaborative portrait with Martina Cleary (2016), in response to Dorothea Lange's image of Patch Flanagan at Tubber Fair (1954).
Cutting The Turf by Tess Diviney (2015).
Journey to Inis Cealtra by Tess Diviney (2016).
Bernie O'Grady
The first image by Lange that comes to mind is of the fair in Tubber, and the neighbour who was just up the road from us at home, Patch Flanagan was his name. He was a character and his brother Joe even more so. They had another brother who was a teacher, and four sisters who were nuns. That’s the first image I saw in the book, and I couldn’t believe he was actually there, because I knew him. Other photographs which are evocative are from the home of the O’Halloran family. They recall the work some women still do, the chores within the house. I would say life for women has changed immeasurably since Lange visited Ireland, and for the better. When you look at her work, a lot of the women, the majority, were still in the home and didn’t have an outside outlet or job. Whereas now anyone of my age that I know, most work outside the home, including the farmers wives, even on a parttime basis. They’re independent, they drive, and they’ve a lot going for them. I think they have the best of both worlds really. In most households women still take care of the home and family. Many farm women also look after the books and some still help out in the dairy from time to time. But there aren’t so many anymore involved in the day to day work on the farm, and that’s changed quite a lot.
Bernie O'Grady, collaborative portrait with Martina Cleary in response to Dorothea Lange's image of Annie O'Halloran (1954). (Right) Family Portraits by Bernie O'Grady (2015).
Family Portraits by Bernie O'Grady (2016).
Family Portraits by Bernie O'Grady (2016).
Michael Keane
Growing ornamental plants in the nursery at Kilkeedy keeps me in touch with nature and the soil, which is very important. These pictures tell their own story of the flora of the Burren, and were taken to reflect the beauty and infinite variety of this naturally unique area. I also worked with Irish field names, and Irish words still in everyday use. These include place names not on maps, but handed down from one generation to the next. It's our duty to make sure they are not lost, to remember them.
Michael Keane in his garden in Kilkeedy (2015) (Right) The Boston Sign at the cross roads in Kildeedy by Michael Kean (2015) (Overleaf) Naming the Fields, Images and texts by Michael Keane and Colm Mac Lochlainn (2015).
Aill an Chaorthainn
Réimse an Chéim Níos Ísle
Turf T
Illeacurrawn
Field of the Lower Step
Turf
Réimse an Cnoc Beag
Muicinis Mór
An B
Field of the Small Hill
Muckinishmore
The B
Big Island of the Pig
Bottom
Cliff of the Rowan Tree
Lios Beag
CarraI Caol
Réimse an
Lisbeg
Garrykale
Field of the
Small Fort
Narrow Field
Thuile Tile
Oileán Glas
Turf Thuile
Illawnglas
Turf Tile
Green Island
Bun
Páirc Mhór
Buns
Parkmore
Garryard
m Field
Big Field
High Field
n Turlaigh
Bóthar na Marbh
e Turlough
Road of the Dead
Garraí Ard
Greag Garbh Gregariff Rough Rock
(Above) Preparing the Plants for Market and (Right) Burren by Michael Keane (2015).
Cultivated Landscapes by Michael Keane (2015).
Colm Mac Lochlainn
I wanted to photograph gates for a long time, as I really love old iron things, I think I’ve got iron in my blood. My family, my ancestors were iron workers and Mc Gloughlíns had a foundry in Dublin. They actually collaborated with the Pearses at the turn of the 20th century, on churches. Those Mc Gloughlíns built the railings outside Dublin’s Leinster House for instance, and various other things. The works were still going in Inchicore, maybe even still going for all I know. They’d be distant cousins of mine now, if they’re still operating. Our family history is well documented. We all know where we came from, and who our ancestors were, our grandfathers and our great grandfathers. My father’s father worked for that company, and when I was maybe fifteen, I was on a student exchange with a student from France whose father oddly enough also worked in iron. Jean-Michel and I went to visit the Mc Gloughlíns family iron works in Inchicore when I was about fifteen. But I used to spend all my time when I was on holidays in the Gaeltacht in the blacksmiths forge, in Ballingeary, because my Irish was fluent, so I wasn’t learning very much in class. The blacksmith would say, ‘suígh síos ansin, na habair tada’, and I’d sit there all morning long, watching the farmers bringing their horses in to be shod. Big hooves like dinner plates. Chatting about what was going on and everything else. So, I have something in me anyway, that has an affinity with ironwork. This is what I was thinking about in taking the photographs. It made me think about forges, about how they work, and hammering, and sparks and steam and smells. The smell of the hot iron, the smell of singed hoof will stay with me forever.
Everybody doesn’t agree with me you know. My wife grew up at the same time but she doesn’t have the same memory of it. I don’t think any real proper light entered into my life until I heard the Beatles, which was about 1962 - 63. So when I look back, it probably wasn’t all grey. The evocative images by Lange, there are a few. The shoemakers – I can smell that. The thatcher’s, the graveyards, places where you can always learn a lot by just walking around looking at the stones. The creamery and the flyboys. They’re the ones the guards were looking out for at the dances, smarter than the average. The photographs of the O’Hallorans at Mt. Callan. There’s something about these, because the youngest, he’s got his back to the camera. It’s like he is looking back and looking forward at the same time, and also time is going backwards. You’ve got the others looking directly at the camera. The three girls are focused on what’s in front of them and the boy is half turned around. There aren't many people like that left, because most have left the land. Others buy the land or get the use of it, but the youngsters that are working as farmers now, many are qualified in agricultural science. There’s all sorts of backup and assistance and not many living that hard life anymore. Also the poem that I wrote, I was trying to think of some way of writing prose to try and encapsulate what the project was about for me. It just sort of popped out as I was driving along one day and I said to my wife, 'tractor bruised', and she said 'what?'. And I said tractor bruised. That’s my poem, what it’s about, gates bashed and bent. It hangs on that.
Those boys on bicycles in Lange's work, they also remind me of my childhood. We were better off than these people, but my own recollection of the 1950’s – I wouldn’t go back there for anything.
A Cooley Gate, by Colm Mac Lochlainn (2015).
Gates Giving shape to threshold spaces, Forged from iron, rivets, braces, Blacksmith's hammer, fire and tongs, Annealed with water, anvil songs. Craft and workmanship revealed, Gates mark the entrance to each field, And farmers know them by their shapes, These sturdy bars, diagonal braced. Each farm threshold has its gate Some made simply, some ornate Examples of the blacksmith's art Ideal width for horse and cart Machinery becomes advanced, Tractors' girth and size enhanced, Through these gates they will not go, A ten foot gap is soon outgrown, And so these gates are taken down, And left to moulder on the ground Forgotten, hardly ever used, Rusty, bent and tractor bruised. But these are noble, these are grand, To be admired where'er they stand And bring to mind true artisans Strong of arm and deft of hand Whose hammers rang both light and deep Their forges gone, their anvils sleep. These men who plied the blacksmith's trade Remembered by the gates they made.
Poem and images by Colm Mac Lochlainn.
Colm Mac Lochhlainn's granddaughters Róise and Rhiannon, collaborative portrait with Martina Cleary (2016), in response to Dorothea Lange's image of Catherine and Anne O'Halloran (1954).
Colm Mac Lochlainn and his granddaughters, collaborative portrait with Martina Cleary (2016) in response to Dorothea Lange's image Young Girl Holding Her Father's Hand (1954).
Michael O'Connor
I chose an archive of images from Frank Brew, a family member as my starting point. Frank was born in 1878 in Castlequarter Tubber and after early involvement in local politics he retired to farming and amateur photography. The majority of his photographs were of local subjects, including his family and neighbours, which he also developed himself. He had the same camera all his life, which included a tripod, a camera which took a glass plate negative, and a black shroud. Unfortunately all of the glass plates have been lost, with only the prints remaining. Frank died of old age in 1970, at 91 years of age, so his images date from the early 20th century onwards and provide some unique glimpses of people in this area. Considering it took time and skill to arrange a photograph back then, he seemed to be able to keep it as informal as possible, as with the image of his nieces and nephews here. Many of his photographs were taken at Monreagh Tubber, the house I was reared in. He seemed to also like to include animals in the photographs, as with the image of my aunt Lua as a young woman with her pet dog. She married in 1935, her husband being much older than she was.
Memory Archive of photographs by Frank Brew of life in Kilkeedy in the early 20th century.
Not every picture was informal, like this more formally arranged portrait of the Fahy Family which he took in Rabane, Gort in the 1930's.
Portrait of my father James O'Connor born 1910 and my mother Ita O'Grady born 1922.
Portrait of his nephew's boxing.
Ladies of the 1940's Maggie Brew (left) with Bridget O' Connor (right). Maggie was my grandmother.
Hands by Martin Kiely (2015)
Martin Kiely
I took images of people, as I wanted to capture what was going on in community hall. I thought it was important as it plays a vital role in people communicating, particularly nowadays, as they actually come to a place and meet. I initially took photographs of the figure and set dancing, the cards night and our own project working with photography. The second focus for me was the landscape around where I now live in Kilkeedy, as it reminded me of where I grew up in the countryside at home, particularly with the grass cut in the fields, and being able to get up in the morning early and go off into the land. The sense of being free I suppose really. Memories of the milking parlour, working with a farmer for the summer, being out there early and giving him a hand. When you thought you were earning loads and you look back and see you weren’t earning a lot at all. The cycles of the land were also important, like the rise of the turlough near our house. When we moved here first it was completely flooded, and then to see it dry out, you get the turn of the seasons. Where I grew up in County Limerick, it was something similar, we had wetlands as well. It didn’t feel bad, but it kind of restricted where you could walk in the winter time. You were mad for the water to disappear, same as here.
Bee Keeping, by Martin Kiely (2015)
Martin Kiely and his wife Aude Richard at their home in Kilkeedy, collaborative portrait with Martina Cleary (2016).
Cards Night at Tubber Hall including portraits of Jack Forde, Mary O'Brien and Padraig Flanagan, by Martin Kiely (2015).
John Roche herding the cows for milking, by Martin Kiely (2015).
Greenroads Through Kilkeedy, by Martin Kiely (2015).
Exhibition Tubber Hall 2015
Limited Edition Photo book including the work of Anne O'Donnell, Michael O'Donoghue, Tess Diviney Bernie O'Grady, Colm Mac Lochlainn, Michael O'Connor, Michael Keane and Martin Kiely, produced in collaboration with Martina Cleary, 2016. Cover Image by Martin Kiely.