John Russell's photos offer a forgotten treasure trove of what daily life in Ireland was like

Before he moved to America, John Russell from Whitegate took hundreds of images of daily life in Ireland, writes Marjorie Brennan

JOHN Russell’s photos of Ireland in the early 1980s depict a very different country from today, where pubs lined the streets of towns and villages, snotty-nosed children roamed free, and smartphones were a futuristic fantasy. However, it is thanks to that technology and the social media of the new millennium that the photographs are now reaching a whole new audience.