New book of photographs provides a glimpse of life in 1960s Ireland

Alen MacWeeney's archive was recently acquired by UCC, and the New York-based photographer has just published a book of his images from the 1960s

Sat, 18 Dec, 2021 - 18:00

Marjorie Brennan

Since he first picked up a camera in 1952, at the age of 13, Alen MacWeeney has reached the heights in the world of photography, with his work featuring in the collections of many prominent museums such as MoMA, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the National Gallery of Ireland.

However, the New York-based Dubliner recently experienced the thrill of connecting with a very different new audience when his partner, artist Pesya Altman, began posting pictures he had taken in his native city in the 1960s in an online forum.

“I was astonished at the amount of interest in the photographs," says MacWeeney, 82. "The responses were colossal because we were all in lockdown, trapped in our houses with our laptops. Sometimes there were up to 1,600 responses to one photograph. It is surprisingly gripping when you start reading the comments and look at the pictures, and the relationship between them, they co-exist very well together, one supports the other.”

Alen MacWeeney, as photographed by Dominic Turner; right, Children by the Canal. [Children picture courtesy UCC]

The interest had such an impact on MacWeeney and Altman that they decided to produce a book of the black and white photographs, titled My Dublin 1963, My Dubliners 2020. The street photography is accompanied by some of the comments from the Facebook group, Dublin, Down Memory Lane, which gives the images a whole new dimension. The particular brand of Dublin humour is also present and correct.

“There is one photograph of a workman leaning on a shovel and it is just a back view of him. There is all kinds of landfill and rubbish either side of him and he is looking out over Ringsend. Some of the comments on that were most amusing. ‘Only the Corporation would have a one-legged workman… if I had two shovels…’ The things that people said, you couldn’t make it up.”

The project has been a labour of love for MacWeeney, who was determined to publish the book this year. He and Pesya travelled to Ireland in August to oversee the preparation and publication of the book, staying on for the recent launch in the Gallery of Photography in Dublin.

“I selected the best printers I could find, who were in Verona. We came to Dublin in August to see the proofs which were sent to us here and then we went over and supervised the printing last month in Verona. It has all been hectic but the book is beautifully finished,” he says.

Children by the Canal, by Alen MacWeeney, from the book, My Dublin 1963, My Dubliners 2020. Picture: courtesy of UCC

His trip to Ireland also gave MacWeeney the opportunity to touch base with UCC, which recently acquired his archive. Crónán Ó Doibhlin, head of research collections at UCC, described MacWeeney's work as “unsurpassed both in its extent and in its superlative documenting of a creative life in Ireland and New York” and welcomed what he said was “an exceptionally important acquisition not only for University College Cork but for the Irish people”.

For MacWeeney, the university’s enthusiasm for his work and the recognition of its importance is particularly gratifying.

“I am very glad that my photographs will be somewhere where they will be cared for and where they will be useful to people, in terms of the history of Ireland and the history of what one person did in their life in photography. That they wanted my photographs was something that was thrilling to me.”

When MacWeeney took the photographs featured in My Dublin 1963, My Dubliners 2020, he had already packed in a lot of photographic experience but was itching to try something new. He had progressed from working as a teaboy in the Irish Times to becoming a staff photographer aged only 16, but gave that up to pursue portrait photography, setting up his own studio. He ended up photographing a Vogue editor who was a friend of his sister’s, and she promised him a job if he could get her a picture of someone famous.

“I would have been 17 or 18 at that time, and Orson Welles was in Dublin at the time in a play. So I called up and arranged to photograph him there at 6 o’clock that evening. The prints were delivered to his dressing room the next day. Being the megalomaniac that he was, he ordered many big prints and put them up all around the dressing room.

"He gave me another assignment to do after that and I ended up photographing a lot of the actors. They would have parties after the shows that would go until 5am in the morning. It was a wonderful time.”

Man with Bike on the Street, by Alen MacWeeney. Picture: courtesy of UCC

The Vogue job never materialised but MacWeeney did spend some time working in London before securing a position with the legendary fashion photographer Richard Avedon. “I worked up the courage and wrote to him in New York, and sent him some of my photographs. He wrote back and said I could work as his assistant although my work as a photographer did not interest him. That was music to my ears because I wanted to shed whatever I had. I went to Paris and worked with him on the collections.”

MacWeeney worked with Avedon in New York for a year, and made the city his base, working in fashion and portrait photography, returning to Ireland periodically to pursue his passion projects.

“The US was a better source of income but it was also a country that loved photography — Ireland is committed to words, not imagery in the same way. I thought I would practise in America and execute my projects in Ireland. I would go back and forth, making money in New York to fund a project.”

One of these projects was MacWeeney’s acclaimed work chronicling the lives of Irish Travellers. He says this work encompassed far more than photography.

“The book I did on the Irish Travellers [Irish Travellers: Tinkers No More] took a long long time to get published — 40 years — but it meant more to me perhaps than anything I had ever done. I had tape-recorded their music and folk tales, story after story. I would have gone on with the Travellers because certain families became friends of mine. I was a sort of folklorist, I covered all the events, funerals and weddings, and had a wonderful time doing it. They became very close to me, I felt they were mine to protect and to also show the world what an interesting life they had,” he says.

Two Girls in Scarves, by Alen MacWeeney. Picture courtesy of UCC

MacWeeney still finds endless inspiration in everyday life but is less keen on the proliferation of imagery due to our constant photographic companion, the smartphone.

“Everybody is a photographer now — they use their iPhone cameras, which do very good photographs, much better than the old Kodak cameras that would cut off people’s heads and feet. People have become much more conscious of photography but the world is drowning in photography, there is just too much. iPhone photographs are looked at for half a second and that it is it. They don’t have the lasting power of a good photograph.

"One of the comments on Facebook was why did I need a credit, anybody can take a photograph. You could say the same thing about painting — anyone can paint, that doesn’t mean it has any meaning. You have to spend a lot of time on photography to develop something that has some substance and will therefore be revealing.”