PHOTOS BENEDICT

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I'm a sucker for Martello Towers and this photo really gets the message. Strong thrusting defensive structures, but behind all the bluff and bluster, a defence network that was becoming politically obsolete even as it was being built.

And the bird? Probably not a real albatross but symbolising a real one round the neck of a cash stripped administration of the day. And the little hint of modern obsolescence in the equally iconic structure in the background. Not to mention the relentless sea wearing away the very rocks on which the tower is built.

See, I told you. And I'm not alone.

Original in NLI

This very tower figured in one of Gordon Brewster's wonderful cartoons. This one is taking a pot at bureaucracy and turf wars, as the Corpo and the Port and Docks Board argue over who is responsible for safety on Dollymount beach, while a stark example of the result of their dithering stares them in the face.

And the tower?

Just a fragment of the above cartoon, but beautifully crafted in pen and wash.

Anyway, this post is about photos and photography, so I should not allow myself to get distracted.

The exhibition is by St. Benedict's Photo Group, about which I have posted previously, and this time they are in the Coolock library in Northside. As usual I am not passing judgement on the relative merits of the photos, which are all up to the Group's customary high standard. I'm just picking out a few that appealed to me for various reasons, photographic and otherwise.

It's the subject matter which got me in the shot above. I've seen these guys in Grafton St. and they are unbelievable. Worthy successors to the Diceman and once seen never forgotten.

This is a beautiful shot which reminds me of those American Dustbowl photos from the 1930s, though I have no idea where this was taken. I love black and white and was a reluctant and late convert to colour myself. I also love railways and the tracks here are used to great effect in the overall composition.

Another black and white beauty. I gather the original was in colour and it is very reassuring that such an excellent quality black and white can be extracted from a modern colour shot.

What can I say. The birdies have the floor.

This looks like a case of the representation outdoing the original, and from the style I think I know who took it. A photo-craftsman.

It raises the issue of how much freedom should the photographer have in the "darkroom" that is modern digital post-processing. My view is "total", providing he is not, for example, a police photographer compiling a dossier for judicial proceedings or a photo-journalist reporting a riot. Photography is "fine art" at the end of the day and what's sauce for the painter is sauce for the photographer. Full marks here.

So what is it about this apparently mundane shot that appeals to me? I don't know if the photographer saw me coming but for me this is like a space shot that just grazed the surface of the moon and subsequently spiraled out of control into outer space.

I am an occasional visitor to Wexford (WD) town and have walked along the quays looking at the boats with the avidity of a Sweepstakes' ticket holder on a heart monitor watching the Grand National. Haven't hit the jackpot yet but this is so close it nearly made me cry.

Anyway, do drop in and check out this exhibition. You won't be disappointed.

Guess who?

Digits erased to protect the innocent
Look who I found on my local northside supermarket noticeboard.

Art is not a crime ?

The above is clearly an unexceptionable statement. Only repressive régimes make art a crime. Do they not?

But when the rest of the backlane, between St. Laurence's Rd. and the Styles Rd., is peppered with the likes of the shite below, it would make you wonder.

Seek and ye shall find

The Roman Catholic Church today is the pits. It is sinking in a quagmire of child abuse; it is denying the spectrum of sexuality originating in the Creation itself; it is promoting a rigid top-down hierarchical structure; and, it is stubbornly clinging to a pre-atomic scientific view of matter. The daily news from this quarter must be depressing for all but the most enthusiastic aficionados.

By way of contrast, I would like to bring a small ray of family history sunshine to bear on this apocalyptic corner of existence. I have to declare at the outset that, while brought up a Roman Catholic, and, having been an enthusiastic advocate of the views of Pius XII in my day, I am completely disillusioned with the whole package. My interest is now simply in observing how the RC Church attempts to extricate itself from its own internal contradictions.

So, to my quest. I was trying to find the baptism records of my grandfather who was born in 1870. They were not available in the microfilm records of the National Library of Ireland and the genealogical service of that worthy institution advised as to the relevant parish church of the day for that area. So I rang the PP, lovely man. “Give Joan a ring and she'll sort you out. Don't ring on Thursday, she'll be busy with a funeral.”

I have to admit I am not a great one for making appointments, so I took my courage in my hands and turned up unannounced at the parish office some days later.

I was very apprehensive. Guilt and baggage I suppose. I was expecting an elderly lady in a knitted cardigan, complete with rosary beads, and I was mulling over my possible defences as to why was I, who had rejected the church, now knocking on their door, and looking for favours, no less? And, by the way, when was I last at confession?

I rang the bell anyway. The door was opened by this gorgeous creature who nearly made me forget why I was there in the first place. “Come in, by all means.” I managed to stammer out my request and was immediately presented with the registers and invited to take photos of the relevant entries and the plush cover of the baptismal registry. Miraculously I didn't muck up the camera settings and eventually went about my way in a daze of divine something or other.

This was an experience totally at odds with what I assume to have been the attitude of the PP of former times who wouldn't let even the National Library of Ireland photograph his precious “confidential” records when that institution was doing its photographic rounds.

Full marks to, and fond memories of, my great-grandfather's parish from 1870.

From my perspective, this beats the apparition at Knock, which also figures in my family history, but which is another story entirely.

Dog's Dinner

This is a posh abode on Vernon Avenue, Clontarf, Dublin 3.

As I passed by, the main gates were open allowing me to take a shot of the house from the roadway. Normally you would have to climb over the gate to see such a sight.

What caught my eye, however, was the wee sign on the door on the extreme right.

Jesse Owens and Ronnie Delany please note!

Lock up your rubbish

There was a time when we lived in a safe society. We didn't need to lock our front or back doors. Nor did we need to lock the car, and set the alarm, while just slipping into the local shop to buy a box of matches.

Well, maybe there was never such a time, and if there was, then there was also a local community to notice any suspicious activity near the front door. And we didn't have cars in those days, well, maybe just one.

Anyway without getting too nostalgic about the times that may never have been, there is no doubt that today is worse. Stabbings, muggings, breaking and entry with GBH are now commonplace. And nobody seems to care. Not enough anyway, unless it is happening to them at the moment.

These thoughts were provoked by a recent visit to the Carmelite church in Berkley Road, in Dublin's north inner city. I was killing time and decided to walk around the block, in a part of the city I had not examined in any detail before, in spite of having gone to school a few hundred yards down the road.

It is an imposing church and has many long remembered trappings of old - the Infant de Prague, St. Theresa of Lisieux and more - associated with the Carmelite Order.

Then I came to the offering box. This used generally to be a wooden box with a slot in it hanging on the wall. Not this time, in this place.

A full blown safe set into the floor with an elaborate slot mechanism. Amazing.

There used to be the very odd occasion, in the old days, when the offering box was burgled by some ne'er do well, who was assumed to have automatically excommunicated himself on the spot, and had an immediate reservation activated in the eternal fires. But the safe suggested that the force of the old deterrent had waned, and we were now into the final showdown where even Baby Jesus would need his manger secured for fear of abduction.

What a wonderful world!

And just in case there are any southsiders out there gloating and wondering what else would you expect on the northside, I should recount a subsequent southside experience to level the pitch.

I was walking along Upper Leeson St., the other day, when what did I see. Wheelies out for the binman (I haven't seen any binwomen yet!).

Nothing passremarkable in that, you might say. But as I passed them by, something caught my eye. Unbelievable - they were all locked. Yes, the rubbish bins were locked. That really got me wondering what people got up to on the southside.

Were the locks to keep the content in, or to stop some tipper piggybacking on his neighbour's load? Were they to stop identity theft? Could those who had identities worth stealing not afford a shredder, or perhaps the time to shred? Were the locks to keep indigent northsiders from sleeping in these luxury southside bins?

Or had these particular southsiders just been watching too much Beckett?

I feel a thesis coming on!

UPDATE

I am sorry to have to report that the Northside has taken this matter one stage further. This photo of a tethered rubbish bin was taken on Raheny DART southbound platform (on 18/11/2008).

Perhaps the local population has figured that these jazzy bins are a better class of object than the ones they put out for the binman at present. Or, given that this bin was on the southbound platform, perhaps the tether is a response to a Northside fear of Southside entrepreneurship in these troubled times.

Kicking Teacher

It seems to have become fashionable to have gone to Belgrove National School despite its being located on the northside of Dublin.

John McGahern taught there and was sacked from there for having written a dirty book. Neil Jordan is a past pupil and I recollect seeing a load of other names quoted recently of well known people whose education started in this school.

I think I was there before before most, if not all, of them. That would have been around 1949 when I was living in Dollymount Park.

People are always writing nowadays about how they went across the fields to school, or to the shops, or to anywhere. Crossing the field has almost attained the status of a literary conceit.

Well, I went across the field to school and I'll bet there are very few people who have had as big a monument erected on their field as I have had on mine. A spanking new church, no less, named after the angel who brought the good news to Mary.

There was nothing wrong with Belgrove, I just hated school and availed of any opportunity not to go.

One day, I set out for school across the field and by the time I got to the other side I realised I had left my schoolbag behind. I turned around and set out for home. By the time I got home, about two minutes later, I had convinced myself that I was now so late that there was no point in going to school at all that day. My mother thought otherwise. But I dug in and refused to go to school. She grabbed me by the ear, or somewhere, and literally dragged me all the way to school.

She knocked on the class door, which class was now well underway. Teacher opened the door. My mother said "This fellow says he's not going to school today". "We'll see about that" said the teacher, making to grab me as my Mother handed me over.

By this time I was beyond all reason and kicked the teacher sharply in the shin. "Get him out of here" shouted the teacher.

My Mother reluctantly led me home, across the field, of course.

QED.

The teacher's name is being withheld at the request of the family. Not her family, my family, in case her estate decides to sue even at this late hour.