Dan McCarthy's photos offer a snapshot of 1960s and 80s Ireland
IT’S 10pm on a rainy night in Inchigeela in the 1980s. A knock on Dan McCarthy’s parents’ door. Outside, Con Joe Lucey with a pot of jam, come to see Dan off to America after a fortnight’s holiday at home. More than 30 years on — in his Canton, Massachusetts, home — McCarthy recalls Con Joe’s words that night: ‘I have some jam here, we’ll have a couple of sandwiches’.
The memory is sparked by a 1964 black and white photo of Con Joe. It is one of about 60 images that will feature in Iveleary, An Exhibition of Photographs of Uibh Laoire at the Town Hall Gallery, Macroom, from July 8-28. The photos were all taken by McCarthy on brief visits home to Inchigeela in the 1960s and ’80s. He had emigrated to America in 1960, having lived in England and Wales in the 1950s. He joined the US army in late 1962 and within 12 months was assigned to an army base in Germany — Erlangen in Northern Bavaria.
