Book review: Recapturing over 120 of John Hinde's scenic snaps of Ireland
More than 120 scenes from 1950s and 1960s Ireland have been recaptured in ‘In Hinde-Sight’ including secenes of Kinsale, Co Cork, and Glandore Lake and Kenmare Bay, Co Kerry.
SCENES that became the public face of Ireland have been “recaptured” in a new book which is the second by photographer Paul Kelly to follow the footsteps of John Hinde across landmarks set in glossy postcards over half a century ago..
Before the magic bus and the package holiday flight to the “costa”, John Hinde postcards “flying” between Ballybunion and Bundoran gave generations of Irish tantalising hints of what an Ireland in the sun, and indeed the sun itself might look like.
So imprinted on the mind were these sunny shiny summer landscape postcards, a kind of hyper reality was created and scenes like that of Glengarriff have never seemed quite as real when visited.
Johnstown Castle near Wexford now a Teagasc Research Centre was perched on the shores of Lake Como, it seemed.
O’Connell Street in Limerick was swishing with style.
Hinde, a war photographer in London, had first visited Ireland in 1947. By the 1950s he and his wife Jutta had moved to live at the southern end of Dublin Bay.
They started their postcard business in 1956 with six giant colorful postcards to sell to the new wave of visitors arriving into Shannon Airport.
By 1972 and with help from a team of British and German photographers there were 300 postcards. These were the idealised versions of an Ireland suffering mass emigration and haltering economy.
The vibrant colors to transport Ireland to the Mediterranean would often be added in a laboratory in Italy, Kelly recounts in the cleverly titled In Hinde-Sight..
Eventually the techniques Hinde used here were exported to Britain, Africa, Australia and other countries. In 1972 the company was sold to Waterford Glass.
“A photographic window into Ireland's past and present,” is how Kelly describes the book. Over 120 scenes from 1950s and 1960s Ireland have been recaptured. The new images are shot during lock down and the odd face mask appears. Hinde-Sight is also a social history, with each twin image accompanied by an informative blurb. Techniques as well as arrangements are echoed. The red car in 1960s O’Connell Street is echoed as is the bicycle.
While some scenes have changed dramatically - the azure blue toy boat harbour at Kinsale is now crowded with fancy sailing boats - other scenes such as Cahersiveen have hardly shifted.
Apart from one-off housing on the hill side nothing much has changed between the 50s and the Covid-19 image in the south Kerry town. Or so it seems.
But pictures can hide a thousand words, regardless of whether they are touched up in an Italian lab or taken during the quiet depression of a pandemic Glistening, emerald green Cahersiveen was a thriving town when John Hinde visited in the 1950s, “a hive of activity” he tells us, bustling with railway, grocery, drapery and hardware shops, a large dance hall and cinema.
Today, tourism, the only show in town has created its “own hive”, though far less lively than the previous mix of commerce, transport, fishing and industry.
The new prominence of tourism is probably captured in the new image if you look closely. The Cahersiveen former army barracks is done up as a tourist attraction.
Then again, the railway bridge appears intact still . Neither “snap” tells how the railway was closed in 1960 and the population declined or how the new replacement greenway is awaited with almost a decade. Pictures and their thousand words, indeed!
Hinde had first visited Ireland in 1947. The post cards seem a world away from the Blitz and dark wartime experiences.. And indeed his philosophy seems deliberately optimistic. “John Hinde had a clear vision: We need to be uplifted rather than depressed," Kelly notes.
For Hinde a picture should always convey a positive, good feeling, "something which makes people happy, which makes them smile, which makes them appreciate tenderness,” Kelly quotes from Hinde's own words..
In Hinde-Sight follows Paul Kelly's highly successful first volume Return to Sender.
Hinde’s iconography of Ireland deserves close study. It had a profound impact on the public mood here and shaped a world attitude towards Ireland for decades. This new book to grace a nice hotel lobby will itself be looked back upon with interest in years to come.
- In Hinde-Sight: Postcards from Ireland’s Past by Paul Kelly - Gill Books, €19.99
