The challenge on Twitter was to publish, over seven consecutive days at one a day, seven pictures related in some way to your life and without any people or words. I have taken this to mean that there should not be any people in the pictures and that they should not be accompanied by any text whatever (eg commentary, location, date). The status of words in the pictures themselves, even if only incidental seems ambiguous.
On each successive day you have also to nominate a different person to do the same.
I was nominated by Felix Larkin.
The photo above is from day 1. It shows the Gem in Howth village (two storey under the bridge on the right) where I spent the first four years of my life after coming home from the Misses Foody's maternity nursing home at 40 Upper Fitzwilliam Street where I was born.
The Gem is also where the renowned, but long forgotten, cartoonist, Gordon Brewster died when I was two years of age.
1958
My mother brought myself (14) and my sister (11) on a holiday to Ostend in 1958, from where we visited the World Fair in Brussels. The Atomium was built specifically for this fair and, along with the Manneken Pis, it has become one of the icons of the Belgian capital.
The photo was taken with a precious 116 bellows camera which has since vanished.
My particular memories of the fair are of meeting Fr. Peyton, the Mayo rosary priest, and of my mother losing £20, or it having been stolen. That was a lot of money in those days and we had to have replacement funds wired out from home.
1963
I spent much of the summer of 1963 as an au pair boy, briefly in Paris but then in Loire Atlantique. That is how I describe it as it involved looking after four young lads between the ages of nine and fifteen and teaching them English (which they didn't want to learn, and they didn't) and tennis and sailing (about which I knew nothing, and I didn't). The correct French term for me in that capacity was "moniteur". I didn't do any cooking or cleaning.
The picture above, taken with a cheap plastic camera, is of a travelling Corrida in St.Brévin l'Océan. As it was a travelling show they couldn't afford for either the bull or the matador to be injured so it was a very mild affair.
1967
I spent an academic year at the College of Europe in 1967/8, This is the canal between Bruges and the nearby town of Damme.
2007
I worked in the Department of Finance from 1968 to 2006, barring a stint in the ill fated Department of Economic Planning and Development from December 1977 to January 1980.
The photo is of the second main corridor in the Department of Finance in the South Block of Government Buildings. I suppose I have to concede the status of (first) main corridor to the Minister's and Secretary General's corridor. to the left at the other end of this one.
2001
This was an unforgettable Eisteddfod for many reasons, not least of which was the winning of the Bardic Chair (Y Cadair) by a woman for the first time ever.
The sound of shattering glass has resonated with me ever since. Though, to be fair, entries are judged anonymously and there was no bar on women entering. This was a wider societal problem which I won't go into here.
And I was there, as part of the accredited press corps. Heaven.
2018
Once seen, never forgotten. This is an image which remained with me since my stay in Brugge in 1967/8. At that time I just considered it from an aesthetic point of view and was not much concerned with the history of the building of which it is part.
This is the Gruuthuse palace occupied by the Lords of Bruges, from the 13th to the 16th century - these Lords of Bruges and not the other Lords of Bruges. As happened with the Popes, there were two factions claiming the title at times. One would have to admit that these guys were pre-eminent having among other things the franchise on certain taxes, including the groat on malt and beer.
And the people I nominated? As far as I can make out, none of them have so far taken up the challenge.
As an afterthought I thought I'd offer some reflections on the process.
When Felix nominated me, I thought Oh Shit, I'm behind in everything and here's more work. But slowly the challenge got to me. How much of my life could I illustrate in seven pictures, what were the high points, and how accessible were the pictures?
I initially intended confining them to photos I'd taken myself, I've been doing that since my teens, but I more or less abandoned that as too restrictive. In the event five turned out to be my photos, one from the National Library of Ireland, and one a scan of an object, my Welsh press badge.
In order to avoid a daily nervous breakdown, I assembled all the pictures in advance and scanned my Twitter followers for victims. I reasoned that those who followed me might be more interested in taking up the challenge.
That was an interesting exercise in the course of which I found that Gerry Adams is still following me despite my ripping into him over the years.
As I had all the material assembled I couldn't wait for midnight to strike to shoot off the next one.
However, as the week progressed I had further thoughts and I ended up doing two substitutions at the end of the sequence. You can see the dropped ones below.
2009
This is the entrance to the circular staircase inside Martello Tower No.7 in Killiney Bay. I have been associated with this tower from around 2000 to date and have a section on it on my web site.
2011
Finally the chapel window in my alma mater, Coláiste Mhuire, which was broken after the premises were abandoned but hastily patched up when the Queen visited the Garden of Remembrance across the road in 2011.
The photo shows the patched window on the right and a pristine window on the left.
And finally, one I dithered over including right up to the end.
2007
The manual cleaning of the supposedly self-cleaning Spire. The resonances here are enormous, hubris, Celtic Tiger, Fallen Empire, and so on.
Anyway it was all great fun and if any of my victims read this post and, however belatedly, take up the challenge, I'll let you know.
You have risen to the challenge magnificently. But it was a pity not to include the stairway in the Martello tower.
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