Books about Limerick and Waterford provide windows into the past

The Limerick Leader has been serving the people of the city and county for 125 years, during which time staff photographers have captured all aspects of local life.

Limerick Through the Lens: Pictures from the Limerick Leader Archive is an engaging snapshot of people at work, shopping or celebrating, children at school, dignitaries visiting, sportsmen and women in action, sports fans cheering, and historic events.

Alan English, the newspaper's editor, compiled the extensive pictorial record to mark the newspaper's century and a quarter.

"There were many joys in doing the book. I'm so pleased that so many superb pictures have been given the showcase they always deserved, in particular the earliest photographs taken by the late Donal MacMonagle, who set up the Leader's photographic department, in the early 1950s," he says. "The printing technology of the day didn't do justice to them, but this book does so, 50 or 60 years on – and gloriously."

In his introduction to the book, English notes it was only in the 1950s that the Limerick Leader began to put news stories on its front page, after more than six decades during which advertisements held sway.

From bonny-baby competitions to women protesting about the French film Je Vous Salue, Marie, the photographic collection provides a unique glimpse of an era when lifestyles and fashions were very different from today.

Famous faces such as Terry Wogan, Phil Lynott, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Richard Harris and John F Kennedy grace the pages, accompanied by concise captions.

Among the photographs included from the second half of the 20th century is the arrival of the all-white South African Springboks rugby team at Thomond Park in 1970, when 400 gardaí were on duty because of anti-apartheid protests.

There are also images from 1965 of Limerick v Cork in the Munster Senior Football semi-final, when Limerick broke an almost 70-year losing spell, winning by 2-5 to 0-6.

English is pictured in the book in a shot taken in 1988, a few months after he started as a junior reporter on the paper. Appointed in 2007, he is, after Con Cregan and Brendan Halligan, the third-longest-serving editor in the paper’s history.

“We were coming across many of the photographs as we went along, scanning them from glass plates in many cases. Every day would bring a new discovery that demanded to be included – right up until an hour before the publisher’s deadline. The response has been fantastic,” he says.

'Not a history book but a book about history" is an apt description of On This Day: Volume 2, which features 120 or so short stories about the past in Waterford city and county, "and nearby".

The recently published book is a follow-up to volume 1 of On This Day, which was written by a local historian and retired teacher, Julian Walton, and edited by Frank O'Donoghue.

The duo have teamed up again for their latest work featuring historical anecdotes and factual tales from Co Waterford and beyond, and illustrated by images from the National Library of Ireland, from Waterford County Museum and by some local artists.

The subjects are varied, from shipwrecks off the Waterford coast to “the original Tyrone Power”, who was born in 1797 in Kilmacthomas, and the executed outlaw William Crotty to the greyhound Master MacGrath (now commemorated in a statue outside Dungarvan), who won the Waterloo Cup three times.

“Julian loves Ireland and loves Waterford, and feels that these facts of history should be passed on,” O’Donoghue says. “It’s not a history book. It’s a book about history. He concentrates on people, whether they were good guys or bad guys, and the various places they inhabited.”

Volume 1, published in 2013 in advance of this year’s celebrations to mark 1,100 years of Waterford’s history, focused largely on the city, but this time the net is cast throughout the county and even as far afield as Clonmel, Youghal and Wexford.

Julian Walton had a daily slot on WLRFM until about two years ago, featuring a tale from the past “on this day”, so although that has come to an end, these volumes – and possibly more in the coming years – ensure that his trove of stories from Waterford will not be lost.

"Volume 1 sold extremely well, so we decided to do volume 2," O'Donoghue says. Walton "has a lightness of touch, and all his stories are short and to the point and told with a wry sense of humour." On This Day: Volume 2 is available from bookshops in Waterford; you can buy signed copies through the website waterfordonthisday.wordpress.com