Friday, April 18, 2008

Beyond the Pale: National Photographic Archive

Modern plaque near Ballymore Eustace marks the southern extreme of the PaleImage via Wikipedia
A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned I was going to go to the Beyond the Pale exhibition in the National Photographic in Templebar. So Jeff and I had some time last week, so we popped in before Lunchtime to see what the was all about. For those of you who don't know where the Archive exhibition space is, it is located opposite the Information Centre in Templebar, behind the IFI.

So the exhibition. Well as the title itself suggests Beyond the Pale is to do with displaying images from the Lawerence Collection in the National Library of Ireland. The Lawerence Collection has been with the National Library since the mid 1940s and is one of the foremost photographic collections of Irish Social life at the turn of the 20th Century. This exbo however deliberates uses images from around the country from the late 19th and early 20th Century and hence the name "Beyond the Pale".

The cities featured in the exbo are Limerick, Derry, Belfast Cork, Galway and Waterford. It also features the town of Kilkenny (Yes I know I know but Kilkenny is not really a city and I'm writing this and I don't really care what the 2006 census says, it is not a City!). Overall Exbo is pretty well laid out and really easy to follow. Highly reccommended Viewing. Even if it is only placing streets in a modern context and trying to work out where everything goes now. Also alot of the images are crystal clear and save for the obvious dress differences with the subjects in the pictures, they could be quiet easily be confused for a picture which was only taken two weeks ago.

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Can I also remind you of the argument had about the vantage point of one of the photographs and the late night revelation I had having seen a corroborating picture in the dark basement of d bar! Who needs the National Library when you have Baker's eh?

April 18, 2008 at 4:00 PM  

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