BY FIONA MURRAY
A MOTHER and son work in a field, building a haystack together; a group of men lean on their sticks while watching cattle pass by during Castletownbere Fair Day; a fluffy gannet chick perches on a cliffside on the Bull Rock; and local people watch horse-racing in a field, as part of the annual Allihies August sports day.
These are just some of the images taken since the 1970s by keen amateur photographer Paul Millard, and which are going on display in Lehanmore Community Centre, at the very tip of the Beara peninsula, almost at the Dursey Sound.
The photographs will be one of the attractions of the Garnish Family Festival, which runs from August 6th to Saturday August 10th. Paul has been visiting the area since the early 1960s. He first came to Allihies with An Óige when they were contemplating buying the old Mine Captain’s house and turning it into a hostel. After it opened in 1965, he was a participant in many voluntary work parties, preparing the hostel for visitors and helping to maintain it down through the years. Even after the hostel closed in 2004, Paul continued to visit and has retained strong links with the locality and its inhabitants ever since.
‘I bought my first 35mm camera down on the quay, in the south jetties in Cork, from a sailor on a Polish coal boat in the early 1970s,’ explained Paul. ‘It was a Russian-made Zenith E, with an excellent lens. The sailors at the time were always anxious to trade, mostly items such as warm winter clothing, ships in bottles, or even radios, and so the camera was a real bargain.’
Paul worked in black and white mostly and carried out his own developing and printing. The subjects he chose to photograph were wide-ranging, and included landscapes, local characters, and glimpses of farming life and of fair days. Some were of the Bull Rock lighthouse.
A close-up photograph by Paul Millard of the intricate detail on Bull Rock Lighthouse door.
‘The lighthouse was manned at the time, of course, and the keepers were always delighted to see visitors, and to get the latest news,’ Paul remembered. He used to travel over to the island with a local fisherman, and was allowed to take photographs inside the building.
Over the decades, Paul kept all the negatives carefully, but was recently persuaded to digitise them – a task which took him several months – and to put a selection on show as part of the Garnish Family Festival in the local townland, outside Allihies.
Paul’s photographs will go on display in the Community Centre on August 6th at 7.30pm. The exhibition will be opened by Carina McNally and will run during the festival and for a further 10 days during the Centre opening hours.
The 39 photos he has chosen will be on sale while Paul has also mounted an ancillary collection of dozens of more photos in a book from which orders can be taken.
Paul feels that his work can be of value to both locals and visitors. ‘The photos are evocative of bygone days. They show Allihies and the region before it became built up, as well as a way of life that has largely disappeared,’ he explained. Paul can be contacted at [email protected].
Other events at the Garnish Family Festival include a trad session (Tuesday 8.30pm), horseshoe pitching and darts competitions (Wednesday 8pm), family table quiz (Thursday 8.30pm), and film festival (Saturday 8pm).
The LIFE (Lehanmore International Film Event) is now in its third year and this year films include: award winning Two for the Road; The acclaimed film made in Beara qualified for consideration of a 2024 Academy Awards. ! Meanwhile Bere Island’s Mary Sullivan’s Fine Line was selected for screening at Irish Film Festival Los Angeles 2024.
These are just two of the films on an impressive programe in Lehanmore.
For inquiries contact [email protected]
