Old pictures of Dublin

[GrahamH]

Ah great stuff Morlan! Exactly what was required. I did the same myself in Picture Viewer with a simple dissolve transition, but this is obviously more permanent . Must learn how to do these things... Many thanks.

The shot was matched on location simply with a printout of the photograph, and maneouvering about on the street like a faintly disturbed individual with an obsession with stepping on paving stone lines, until the required position was reached. You manage perspective using elements in the photograph as base points, such as the overlapping of the terraces in the distance, and work from that - i.e. matching wall lines on the vertical plane and roof levels on the horizontal.

Lens distortion is a problem alright, but luckily a relatively basic lens was used the first time round too (though I did have to stitch that vast sky in rather crudely from a second shot). Tilt the new photo to the desired angle (as much as it pained me to make it off-level) and voila! The same manhole covers on the road and even the same pattern of tarmac helped considerably

[magwea]

Amazing stuff GrahmH. Heartbreaking to look at the change. It's shocking how the integrity of a place can be butchered with only a few changes.

I wonder if you could be persuaded to try your hand at more LIFE recreation photos. There great.

Morlan: that animated gif is real spooky. Has a post Neutron bomb kinda feel.

[kefu]

In a sense, it sums up the problems of suburban and residential Dublin. Everybody is striving to be different, to put their ham-fisted individualistic stamp on their property when the real beauty lies in consistency and the whole: in unremarkable but similar fencing, in the same paint colour, in the flourish of a lamp post and the general feel of unity that was intended in design but has been lost with the passage of time.

[GrahamH]

Precisely.

[StephenC]

A great photo exhibition in the National Photographic Archive in Meetinghouse Square at the moment. Well worth a look for some faded Dublin images. Includes one of Fitzwilliam Street being demolished fro the ESB offices.

[trace]

Agree with StephenC. Catch it before it closes in October.

If ever you go to Dublin town, is an exhibition of evocative photographs by Elinor Wiltshire chronicling Dubliners as they worked, played, shopped and prayed during the 1950s and 1960s. The exhibition title If ever you go to Dublin town takes its name from a poem of the same name by Patrick Kavanagh, who, along with other literary figures, including Flann O’Brien, was a friend and neighbour of Elinor Wiltshire.

Born in Limerick, Elinor Wiltshire (nee O’Brien) founded the Green Studios on St Stephen’s Green, Dublin, with her husband Reginald Wiltshire in the 1950s. Over a period of about fifteen years, using a Rolleiflex camera which she acquired in 1955, Elinor Wiltshire captured images of a changing city and its people. The Rolleiflex camera was held at waist level and the scenes or images to be captured were viewed through a 6x6cm ground-glass screen. As a result, many of those featured in the portraits in the exhibition were completely unaware that a camera was trained on them – hence the natural and uninhibited manner in which they are depicted.

The near perfect composition in many of her photographs reveals an artist’s eye for the beauty that exists in everyday life – shoppers in Cumberland Street’s busy second-hand market; summer outings on Sandymount Strand; exuberant scenes of All Ireland Football Finals fans at railway stations; Corpus Christi processions through the city of Dublin. Also chronicled are significant social changes in the Inner City, as reflected in the anxiety shown on the faces of residents facing eviction and relocation from tenement buildings in York Street, off St Stephen’s Green, to new areas such as Ballymun.

Her photographs were not just about Dublin city, however. Some of the most important images record the life of Traveller families at a time of great change in Ireland. Her photographs of an encampment in County Cork, as families prepared for the Cahirmee Horse Fair, are remarkable, as are those she took of the Sheridan/O’Brien campsite in Loughrea, Co Galway.

Her husband Reginald’s death in 1968 led to the sale of the business and brought an end to her series of Dublin photographs. Following a visit to Ethiopia in 1971, she moved to London, where she now works as a botanist and researcher at the Natural History Museum.

In total the Wiltshire Photographic Collection numbers some 1,000 negatives and 300 prints. It was acquired by the National Library of Ireland in 1994 and images from the collection were first exhibited by the Archive in 1999.

[litirte]

These pictures are terrific! As a former resident of Dublin many, many years ago I found the 1950s-era photos particularly interesting.

Does anyone have any pictures of the neon Bovril sign that used to light up the Dublin skyline back in the early 1950s? Maybe 'lighting up' is a bit of an exaggeration, but it was visible at least from the Liffey end of O'Connell St looking towards Grafton.

Dublin was a great neon capital, back then. Whether one liked neon or not it pretty much defined the city in the 50s. The Carlton & Metropole cinemas in particular were eye-catchers.

Hope there are lots more pictures out there.

Thanks

[trace]

Bovril? Or Don and Nelly flipping neon sausages into a frying pan for Donnelly's? ...mmm... Tasty even now, after all the years!

[litirte]

I don't remember the Donnelly's neon sign. That's one I would have remembered. Where was that located? (We were brought up on Castlebar Bacon brand of sausages which my father bought in bulk from their distribution center on Findlater Place, off Marlborough St. A viler place you never saw!)

[rashers]

I don't remember the Donnelly's neon sign. That's one I would have remembered. Where was that located?

D'Olier Street just as you entered the street from O'Connell Bridge, though it was visible for quite a distance. A lady tossed a sausage from a pan, it went across the building (the sausage not the pan :-) and became impaled on a fork held by a man.

[trace]

Found this c1960 pic of the Donnelly's Sausages neon sign here: http://www.thegrovesocialclub.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=672&PN=1&TPN=5
Nelly, the girl with the frying pan, is on the left. Don, the boy on the right, had a fork in his hand to catch the sausages Nelly flipped his way.

[litirte]

Thanks, guys. Times Square it's not but our expectations were much lower back then!

[GrahamH]

Brilliant! How is it that they both had names?

Thank god it was removed before it developed a pesky cultural significance.

[rashers]

I'd love to see the Christmas lights on McBirney's of Aston Quay in the '50s. People used to travel miles to see that one.

[litirte]

The store windows were indeed a sight to see at Christmas. Pims department store was another Christmas attraction.

I do not recall seeing the Donnelly's sign. Either it was installed after I had left or else the sight of a neon sausage flying through the air was so Freudian and disturbing that I ruthlessly suppressed the memory. Probably the latter.

[samflash]

Perhaps some help. I am doing a history Podcast on the area of Dublin 8 and the Guinness company. I am trying to track down some imagery of the slums and tenaments of Dubin during the 1900s. It is important that I can get right to use the images as they will be displayed on web for people to download and listen to the stories and watch the images. any help that can be given in this matter is truly appreciated.

Thanks

Sam

[StephenC]

Why not try the National Photographic Archive on Meetinghouse Square.

[Tighin]

Brilliant! How is it that they both had names?

Thank god it was removed before it developed a pesky cultural significance.

Donnelly Sausages... Don-Nelly, geddit?

It's been removed? Damn!

[Devin]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaA0LWRaNqY

Part 1 of Éamonn MacThomáis's Dublin (get parts 2-8 in the related videos). Only 30 years ago but a completely different city. Seemingly every half a minute in these videos you want to cover your face because the city is so ripped assunder.

What was MacThomais like?! I remember seeing him one day in the 1990s in what used to be Switzers, Grafton St., on the charm offensive with a couple of American tourists. He was rolling out the Dublinisms and they were lapping it up :-) A great oul character.

[rashers]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaA0LWRaNqY

Part 1 of Éamonn MacThomáis's Dublin (get parts 2-8 in the related videos). Only 30 years ago but a completely different city. Seemingly every half a minute in these videos you want to cover your face because the city is so ripped assunder.

What was MacThomais like?! I remember seeing him one day in the 1990s in what used to be Switzers, Grafton St., on the charm offensive with a couple of American tourists. He was rolling out the Dublinisms and they were lapping it up :-) A great oul character.

His son Shane now does the guided tour of Glasnevin cemetary.

Eamon was a guest of the state (during the '70s ?) for his Republican beliefs.

[LauJ]

I'm really enjoying this thread.
I'm not sure if flickr accounts have been included yet but here is a link to photographs worth a look.

http://www.flickr.com/search/groups/?q=moore%20street&w=48889078629%40N01&m=pool

Does anyone have any further documentation of Moore St. of old please?

[rashers]

The shame of the birthplace of Richard Brindsley Sheridan (right of The Moy pub) allowed to fall into ruin.

[bigjoe]

some excellent before and after pictures here of Dublin that i thought would suit this thread. (hover mouse over old picture to get then the new picture)

http://www.photography.paul-walsh.net/l ... e/Cushman/

[Morlan]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nlireland/

[cajual]

Cool movie of Dublin streets in '82, including a drive down Grafton Street

http://vimeo.com/27435412