Irish Examiner photographer retires with half a century and 500,000 pictures under his belt

Staff photographer Denis Minihane retired after 47 years with the Irish Examiner and The Echo. Picture: Larry Cummins

Tributes have been paid to award-winning Irish Examiner photographer Denis Minihane who has retired after a remarkable career spanning almost half a century. And he has the pictures to prove it.

Mr Minihane, 65, who joined the dark room of then Cork Examiner in 1976 aged 17, and who was appointed a press photographer two years later, was the newspaper’s longest serving employee until he officially hung up his camera on Wednesday.

It is estimated that he took more than 500,000 photographs over the course of his career, and bagged 27 national and international awards.

Dozens of staff gathered in the Irish Examiner’s newsroom to mark his final day at work on Wednesday.

“It has been a privilege working here over the years,” he said, as he paid thanked the many past and present colleagues with whom he worked over the years.

I will miss my large second family here but I will be keeping an eye on the publications. But now it’s time for me to shutter off into the sunset.

Mr Minihane, whose father, Michael, was a shopkeeper and local photographer covering a vast area in West Cork from Bandon to Dursey, said he grew up in a “newspaper home” in Skibbereen, where their pet Yorkshire Terrier, Bruno, was trained to deliver copies of the Cork Examiner to local houses.

He attended events with his father, and began writing local news for the Examiner before he got a job in the dark room in 1976, and was appointed a photographer two years later.

He recalled the rush to develop rolls of film, of printing black and white photographs from negatives, of how photographers had to either deliver the prints physically or wire them back to the office, the introduction of colour printing and how technology now allows photographers to email photos or video from the field.

“We have to work harder now because everyone has a camera on their phone,” he said.

'World exclusive'

He is perhaps best-known for his iconic and haunting black-and-white image of victims of the 1985 Air India disaster lying in a makeshift morgue at what was then the Cork Regional Hospital.

"I knew I had a picture but I didn’t know what exactly I’d captured. You never knew until the negatives were developed later. That was an anxious seven or eight minute wait. But I always felt for the families of the victims,” he said.

Denis Minihane's dramatic picture of bodies from the Air India Flight 192 air disaster on June 23, 1985. Picture: Denis Minihane

He recalled how when the then night editor, Liam Moher, saw the image, he held the printing of the paper to include the photograph, and marked it as a “world exclusive”.

The image captured the scale of the human tragedy and was syndicated around the world, including in the hugely influential New York-based  Life magazine.

Mr Minihane covered the Betelgeuse and Kowloon Bridge disasters, the Papal visit to Ireland in 1979, and later Pope John Paul’s funeral in Rome, the release of the Birmingham Six, and the devastating 2009 Cork floods.

The Kowloon Bridge disaster in 1986. Picture: Denis Minihane/Irish Examiner Archive

He also covered countless local, national, and international sporting events, including Ronan O’Gara’s famous drop kick in Cardiff to win the Grand Slam in 2009.

One of the iconic photos of the Cork floods in 2009. Picture: Denis Minihane

But he said some of his fondest memories are the human-interest stories, including taking the first press photographs of the conjoined twins, Hassan and Hussein Benhaffaf, in their Carrigtwohill home just weeks after their birth in December 2009, sharing a cup of tea with Marlon Brando in Shanagarry during the shooting in 1995 of the failed Divine Rapture movie, and of being bitten by a penguin on a shoot in Fota Wildlife Park.

Hassan and Hussein Benhaffaf, theconjoined twin boys at eight weeks old, sleeping at their home in Cork. Picture Denis Minihane.

Irish Examiner editor Tom Fitzpatrick described Mr Minihane’s retirement as "a sad and poignant day" for the company but said he has left a remarkable legacy in the company's photographic archive.

“It is our chance to say thank you and farewell to a man whose been here for all our first days — it was service without parallel,” he said.

Visual media manager, Jim Coughlan, paid tribute to Mr Minihane’s professionalism and dedication and said: "You always did it with a smile on your face. You were a total gentleman."

Denis Minihane with Irish Examiner editor Tom Fitzpatrick, The Echo editor Grainne McGuinness, and Visual Media manager Jim Coughlan. Picture: Larry Cummins

Mr Minihane thanked his wife, Maeve, and their four adult children, Laura, David, Conor and Shane.

“I am aware of the challenges that press work places on family so I’d like to thank my family for their support,” he said.

He hopes to take up art classes in retirement.

• See more photos in Thursday's Irish Examiner.