Tributes to photographer Colin Keegan who died in Co Meath crash

Photographer Colin Keegan who worked with the Collins Photo Agency died following a traffic collision in Co Meath on Saturday. Picture: Press Photographers Ireland/Instagram

Tributes have been paid to award-winning news photographer and "visual storyteller who consistently set the standard", Colin Keegan, who tragically died following a traffic collision in Co Meath on Saturday afternoon.

Dan Linehan, president of Press Photographers Ireland, said that his organisation would mourn the loss of Mr Keegan with "profound sadness", describing him as someone who had "captured the heart, soul, and history of Ireland".

Mr Keegan, who had worked for Collins Photo Agency in Dublin for more than 20 years, died when the motorcycle he was riding collided with a car at Harlockstown, near Dunboyne in Co Meath just after midday on Saturday.

Among the many celebrated images he took across a storied career were an infamous shot of Fianna Fáil TD Willie O'Dea brandishing a handgun in 2005, and a picture from 2002 of then-Taoiseach Bertie Ahern standing stoically up to his knees in the floodwater of the River Tolka in Drumcondra, north Dublin.

Former Irish Examiner photographer Mr Linehan, offering his condolences to Mr Keegan's family, friends, and colleagues, said that he would "be remembered for his warmth, his generous spirit toward fellow journalists, his humour, and his fearlessness in difficult situations".

Tribute from fellow photographer

Niall Carson, a photographer with the Press Association news agency who worked alongside Mr Keegan for two decades, meanwhile said that his loss was both "a big shock and very poignant as well", given Mr Keegan's death comes just 15 months after his colleague and close friend Mick O'Neill died, also in a motorcycle collision.

"He had been very upset about that," Mr Carson said. Of Mr Keegan himself, Mr Carson said: 

"He was a good friend, he was my competitor, but he was very nice about it. 

"I don't think we had more than one cross word over 20 years, and he leaves behind a great legacy of pictures, some of the most famous photos taken in Irish political life."