WHICH IRELAND?

In the past, two views of Ireland dominated: an idealised topographical view, designed to appeal to tourists (as in John Hinde postcards), and a photojournalistic view that recorded and dramatised the Troubles. More often than not these were images made by outsiders to be seen elsewhere. But what about today? How should Ireland be represented by photographers now? We asked a selection of writers this question and they gave us some pleasingly unanticipated answers. We should see people being happy says Erika Hanna. We should avoid undue optimism says Colin Graham. Read together, these answers are like extracts from a catalogue of possibilities rather than a manifesto. They complement the portfolios of photographs that also appear in this issue.

Summertime is a series of images made in Dublin in which Pablo Marín García sets out to understand the place he now calls home. Garcia sees the images as open-ended testimonies to what is visible for most but not equally noticed by all. Supriya Kaur Dhaliwal introduces the work and notes that, "The people of Dublin’s new communities, as captured in these photographs, offer a glimpse of promise. Pablo’s lens imagines a new Dublin, a new Ireland".

Michael Croghan describes himself as "an obsessive daily image maker" who frequently revisits places because of the transient nature of things. Working in County Longford he travels on foot and by bicycle and sees going up the wrong road as an opportunity for finding subject matter. ‘Local strangers’ is a phrase that is frequently included in the working titles for many of his images. Neighbours known well and in passing also regularly appear in the images. Knowing one person at any given location will often give him access to the wider circle. Invitations to photograph are frequent. Striking up conversation is a typical means of enabling an image to be made. Niamh NicGhabhann Coleman introduces the work and finds in it a "landscape that is coming into being as much as one that is ancient".

Joe Laverty’s "Semblance" was made over a series of winters, roughly within the confines of Mid Ulster. The work follows themes of rural isolation and environmental anxiety, and explores how certain ways of life continue. Factories and large farms or ‘rural factories’ punctuate the landscape in this examination of agricultural architecture and rural space. Friends of the Earth Northern Ireland have written about the "historical neglect of environmental issues" that were formerly seen as distracting attention from resolving the conflict in Northern Ireland or, in more settled times, disturbing the peace. They say, "‘For any post-conflict society to proceed on the basis of failed environmental management will only serve to sow the seeds for future conflict".