Professor of History
Caspersen Graduate School
Carrick-a-Rede Bridge, Co. Antrim.
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| PUBLICATIONS | |
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Here is a treasure: an assemblage of photographs from the most tragic hundred years in Ireland's history, from 1839, when the first Irish photographs were taken--just months after Daguerre invented the process--through the destitute years of the Great Hunger's aftermath (not surprisingly, there are no photographs of that disaster), to the revolution that made Ireland a modern, self-governing nation. The photographs, including those of such little-known women artists as Christine Chichester and Louisa Warenne, are haunting icons of grand wealth and grinding poverty, of war and ordinary life. As with many photographs from the time when the camera was still a somewhat threatening novelty, the most haunting images are the faces of the people who stare straight at the viewer across the pained decades. An excellent interpretive text provides context for these unforgettable pictures. Patricia Monaghan Copyright © American Library Association. Sean Sexton has spent a lifetime collecting old Irish photographs, and it shows in this collection of 271 images documenting every aspect of Irish life from 1840 to 1940. Insightful captions provide the context to each of the pictures, which are presented alongside an extended narrative by historian Christine Kinealy in four chapters ... The whole is beautifully presented. As a coffee table book, it would be an ornament to any home, but much more than this, as a work of history it provides the reader with a unique sense of immediacy. ‘… the intellectual content informs the visual and more importantly, the visual content informs and illuminates the intellectual ... scholarly and authoritative ... largely devoid of sentimentality and posturing ... an excellent work of history, written by an author with a genuine passion for the history of Ireland’ |
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