Through the eyes of a child: 'Small Lives' exhibition on display

FIONA GARTLAND

AN EXHIBITION capturing the images of childhood in Ireland from 1880 to the 1970s has been put on display in Dublin.

Small Lives, featuring 50 photos of 19th- and 20th-century children, will be opened tomorrow by Minister for Arts Jimmy Deenihan at the National Photographic Archive in Temple Bar.

Mostly in black and white, the images range from formal studio portraits to informal street photos and are taken from the National Library of Ireland’s collection.

They show children not just in the context of their own lives, but as witnesses to major events such as the Civil War, Michael Collins’s funeral and the 1932 Eucharistic Congress.

Social events are captured, such as a day at the seaside in 1890 and the St Patrick’s Day parade of 1924.

The harsh realities of life are also portrayed. One image shows very young boys learning to make nets in the Industrial Fishing School in Baltimore in 1944; another shows shabbily dressed boys with creels of turf in Connemara in 1900.

Exhibition curator Aoife O’Connor said the process of selecting images to represent the full spectrum of Irish childhood proved challenging. She searched through 25,000 photographs before choosing the final 50.

“We didn’t want to focus exclusively on people who could afford to have their photographs taken,” she said.

Asked whether she had a favourite, Ms O’Connor said she loved one particular image, from the Wiltshire collection, of a young girl praying.

“Most children love to challenge photographers, by making silly faces and so on, but this little girl just gives the photographer a piercing glare. And that’s really the aim of photography; to capture the ordinary in an extraordinary way,” she said.

As well as photographs, the Small Lives exhibition features illustrations dating from the 1830s. Normally in the National Library’s prints and drawings department, the illustrations show how children were depicted before photography.

The exhibition, which will run until June 2012, also features a range of educational materials and a message board where visitors can comment on their favourite images.

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