Waterford on the wall: Sad and serious Victorians stare out from black and white photographs, stilled forever in a frame. Their faces are among the 80 images taken from a photographic collection amassed by the Waterford-based family firm of AH Poole's Photographic Stores between 1884 and 1954, which went on view to the public this week.
"They have a resonance for everybody but it's a very personal resonance for me," said Waterford native Martin Cullen, the Minister for Transport, when he opened the exhibition at the National Photographic Archive in Dublin's Temple Bar last Tuesday. He recalled playing on Tramore Strand as a child, sitting at the old-fashioned desks in school, and being put on a high stool at the counter of the old Adelphi Hotel to have a something with his grandfathers.
The photographs "are so rich. . . If you plucked out the word 'Waterford', they say an incredible amount about the social history of Ireland", said Alan MacDougall, a London-based consultant who is assisting with the creation of a new strategic plan for the National Library. A photograph of the Metal Man in Tramore caught his attention: "I was struck by that column with a sailor on top that said if a woman hopped around it three times, she would be married within the year. That struck me as a fascinating one."
The exhibition rekindled many childhood memories for Col William Phillips, who grew up on the Mall in Waterford, directly across the street from Messrs AH Poole.
"It's a wonderful collection," said Donal Moore, Waterford's city archivist. "It chronicles the city and its surrounds over half a century. My favourite photograph has to be of Murphy's coal yard - it shows the ordinary people of Waterford at work," he said.
Among those who gathered to view the exhibition were travel consultant Billy O'Keeffe and WIT history student Johnny Barry, both Waterford men; Monica Henchy, who studied the vintage cars in the photographs of Bonmahon, where she holidays each year; and Brendan O'Donoghue, former director of the National Library and chairman of the newly reopened James Joyce Centre, with his wife Bernie.
Poole's Photographic Store: Photographing Waterford continues at the National Photographic Archive, Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin, until Mon, Oct 16
Erotic tension and playful balance
Erotic, playful, simple, peaceful and colourful are some of the words used to describe new paintings by Richard Gorman. The exhibition, entitled Flyer, went on view at Dublin's Kerlin Gallery on Thursday night.
"I find them incredibly erotic," said Clare-based artist Sam Walsh, whose own work had just opened in a group show at the Hillsboro Fine Art gallery across the road.
"I love the simplicity of his work, and the colouring . . . It's all about geometric shapes and tension," said Dermott Barrett, who was chatting to friends, Catherine Boland and Mick McMorrow.
"I think they are very peaceful and calm," said businesswoman Margaret Downes, her husband Desmond agreeing, before they left to go to a farewell party for the British ambassador, Stewart Eldon and his wife, Christine.
"I like the way they work in a series," said artist Ferdia Mag Lochlainn, who graduated from the National College of Art and Design last year. "The square is a constant in all of them, the other shape imposing on it in different ways."
"They are beautifully balanced, abstract paintings dealing with colour and tone in a very sophisticated way. It's all about that balance between shapes and forms, colours and tones," said David Fitzgerald, one of the directors of the gallery. "They are very complete pictures within themselves but in total there's a beautiful rhythm to the exhibition," he said of the seven large canvases in the main gallery space. "For a long time he has been developing this sense of fun," he added.
Gorman, who is from Dublin but is based in Milan, says the next project he'll work on, will involve "making a suite of prints for the Beckett Centenary in Paris in the Centre Culturel Irlandais". The seven-print suite will be called Sept.
Other guests at the show included artists Kenneth Donfield, of the National College of Art and Design, Finola Jones and David Godbold, who run the Mother's Tankstation gallery on Watling Street in Dublin 8, Fiach MacHale, and Brigid Connaughton and her sister Ann Ross.
Flyer by Richard Gorman continues at the Kerlin Gallery, Anne's Lane, South Anne Street, Dublin 2 until Saturday, August 12th
Homage to long evenings
Pat Boran, reading from Jane Kenyon's poem Let Evening Come, set the balmy, summer tone last Tuesday in Dublin's Damer Hall.
"Let the light of late afternoon/ shine through chinks in the barn, moving/ up the bales as the sun moves down."
As a poet and Dedalus Press publisher, he welcomed a gathering of fellow poets and friends to an evening of song and poetry, entitled Bright Evening, organised jointly by Poetry Ireland and his publishing house and hosted largely to celebrate the summer days, he said.
Gerard Smyth, of this newspaper, was among those who read in the hall, which is part of the Unitarian Church on St Stephen's Green. In his poem, Homage to Hartnett, he recalled the late poet "raising a glass, striking a match:/ the haiku-master of Emmet Road/ wedged between Sweet Afton/ and Woodbine smoke." And the evening's chilled vibe continued when Gary Fitzpatrick, of the Sick and Indigent Song Club, sang about a woman, Rose, "whose watchful eyes, they keep their stories well, tells of the finest boy to walk down by the bell (at Mass)."
"The thing that I like about poetry is that you can be like a ventriloquist, you can get into the minds of others," said poet Enda Wyley, who has had three collections published by Dedalus and read at the event. Her parents, Imelda and Jack Wyley, from Dalkey, came along too. Poets John O'Donnell SC and Paul Perry also read their work.
Listening in the audience were poets Tony Curtis, Dennis O'Driscoll, James McAuley, Hugh O'Donnell, Anatoly Kudryavitsky and Kevin Byrne, who is currently organising the Drimnagh Arts Festival, which will run for a week in September from Friday 22nd. Also present were writer Valerie Sirr, metalwork teacher Eamon Dennehy, and biochemist Jamie Calalane.
Jokes and blokes
No women will darken the stage of the Abbey Theatre during upcoming performances of The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde. The play, which features an all-male cast under the direction of Conall Morrison, opened to a full house on Wednesday night.
"I think it makes it a lot funnier," said actor Tracy Harper afterwards. Her friend, actor Merrina Millsapp, agreed.
"It broadens the humour but possibly makes it less subtle," said playwright Gerald Murphy.
"I really, really enjoyed it," said producer and director Bisi Adigun, who takes his production of African stories, Once Upon a Time, to Sligo this weekend.
"The purpose of doing the all-male play was the idea of looking at Oscar Wilde the moment in history where he had his humiliation was also the moment when he had his artistic triumph," said Fiach Mac Conghail, director of the Abbey.
Among those in the audience was the actor Eleanor Methven, who has just finished playing a part in the feature film Becoming Jane, a new biopic looking at Jane Austen's life before she became a writer. The Jane Austen film, which is directed by Julian Jarrold, was shot in counties Wicklow and Meath, which she describes as "the new Hampshire".
Also present was actor Mal Whyte, who has begun rehearsals for Submarine, the play by Ulick O'Connor, which deals with Roger Casement's efforts to import weapons into Ireland in 1914. The play opens at Bewley's Cafe Theatre on Monday, July 24th under the direction of Caroline Fitzgerald. Steve Blount will play Casement, says Whyte.
Also chatting on the footpath at the interval were recent graduates of the School of Drama in Trinity College Dublin - Maeve Fitzgerald, Eric Higgins and Andrew Adamson. Higgins has a part as Henry VIII's groom in the new TV series The Tudors, which is currently shooting in and around Dublin, with Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the role of the king with Bluebeard-like leanings.
The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde runs at the Abbey Theatre until Sat, Sep 9