The men who rose to fame over lunch

A new film explores the Galway roots of workers in iconic image, says Pádraic Killeen

ELEVEN iron-workers sit precariously upon a girder at the top of the Rockefeller construction site in 1930s New York, in Lunch Atop a Skyscraper, one of the most iconic images of the 20th century.

When filmmakers Seán and Eamonn Ó Cualáin saw it in Michael Whelan’s pub in Shanaglish village, in Co Galway, it was a short note beneath the picture that caught their eye. It read: ‘As promised, picture of my dad and my uncle, far left and right, Sonny Glynn and Mattie O’Shaughnessy — Pat Glynn.’ The two men sniffed a story.