Born: June 8th, 1941
Died: February 21st, 2026
Edmund Ross, who has died in London aged 84, was one of Ireland’s best known and most accomplished photographers.
For more than six decades he captured actors, public figures and generations of families – couples, their children and newly arrived babies. He specialised in family portraiture, portraits of leading figures in society whether in politics, the arts or business. He specialised also in restoring old photographs.
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He said he didn’t take photographs with his camera lens but rather with his own eyes.
“He meant it,” his daughter Tania told his funeral. “He was never really hiding behind the lens. He was out in front of it- coaxing, chatting, making you laugh, making you forget the camera was even there – until suddenly, the real you showed up. And then he’d catch it. That was the magic. Not the equipment. Him.”
A gregarious man with an effervescent personality, he was irrepressible in company, delighting in other people, and ever happy to engage with them and entertain them.
Edmund Malcolm Ross was born in Dublin in 1941 and grew up in the small but vibrant Jewish community around the South Circular Road. His father David was a photographer, while his mother Hanna worked in the home.
Their families came originally from Kovno, modern-day Kaunas in Lithuania, which at the end of the 19th century was part of the tsarist Russian empire.
In the mid-1920s in Dublin, Joe Ross, Edmund’s uncle, set up a photographic studio and invited his brother David from Belfast to join him. It was through their work that Edmund was exposed as a child to the art of capturing images on film by skilfully using light and composition, as well learning the magic of the darkroom.
But photography was not to be for him- at least not initially.
He attended St Catherine’s National School on Donore Avenue and then Stratford College in Rathgar. He passed the entrance exam for the Royal College of Surgeons, where he began studying dentistry.
However, when he was aged just 22, his father died suddenly aged 52. As a result, Edmund gave up his studies, a sacrifice that allowed his elder brother Leslie continue his medical studies and his younger sister Beverley to finish her schooling. It also allowed him support his mother.
Because he had wide knowledge of photography as well as an aptitude for it, he decided to open his own business, which began on Chatham Street in 1963. From June 1968, he moved the studio to 59 Grafton Street.
It became a feature of the street, signposted by a bright yellow neon sign with red letters, as per the Kodak branding, proclaiming Edmund Ross photographer, and showing an old-fashioned tripod-mounted camera. Such was the familiarity of the sign to generations of Dubliners that it became a protected structure.
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Ross quickly established himself as a leading, if not the leading, family and portrait photographer in Dublin. Clients included taoisigh Charles Haughey, Albert Reynolds (who opened an expanded studio in 1994), John Bruton and Leo Varadkar, and other leading figures including Progressive Democrats leader Mary Harney, hotelier PV Doyle, soprano Veronica Dunne, passport photos for members of U2 (which were shot at their recording studio in Windmill Lane), and the CEOs of the major banks.
And he did commercial work for banks and hotels. His wedding and family photos meant that his work entered the homes of thousands upon thousands of ordinary people. He also developed a niche as a restorer of old family photographs.
As a person, he was a presence on Grafton Street.
Tania recalled: “You could not walk down Grafton Street with Dad without it taking four times longer than it should. People would stop him constantly. ‘Edmund. Great to see you.’ And Dad would smile that enormous smile, shake their hand warmly, ask after the family – genuinely interested, genuinely present – and then the moment they walked away, he’d lean over to you and whisper, ‘Who on earth was that?’ His memory for a face was stronger than his memory for a name.
“He hadn’t the faintest idea. But they never knew that. Because when Dad looked at you, you felt like the only person in the world. Whether he remembered your name or not was entirely beside the point.”
In 1962, Edmund married Maureen Sher and had three children – David, Jonathan and Leon – but the couple separated in 1974.
Three years later, over a bank holiday weekend he went to Manchester when the city was celebrating Queen Elizabeth’s silver jubilee. There, he met his second wife to be, Anne Bernstein, a primary schoolteacher from Manchester whom a cousin recommended for a blind date.
“And three days later, he asked me to marry him,” said Anne.
“Nothing normal happened with Edmund. He was probably the most exciting person I ever met. It seemed like we were living in a whirlwind the whole time. He was a kind, generous and spirited man. He loved life and he embraced people.”
He and Anne set up home in Dublin – living variously in Kimmage, Dundrum, Rathfarnham and then Ballsbridge – and had two children, Adam and Tania.
As a father, Ross doted on all his children, and on his grandchildren. He had a habit of forgetting things but luck, and sometimes charm, would see him emerge unscathed: the stolen wedding photographs that were found in the Dublin mountains; the traffic warden who ignored his double yellow line parking because he’d taken his wedding photos as well; the Ryanair staff he sweet-talked into letting him board a plane, even though he’d forgotten his passport.
Outside of work, Ross was an avid tennis enthusiast, playing three times a week at the Riverview facility run by David Lloyd, and did so until into his 80s. He was a lover of art galleries, museums and musical theatre. He took pride in his appearance and liked to entertain. He enjoyed singing – anything by Frank Sinatra or Dean Martin – and was unable to sit at a dinner table while music was playing without tapping out the beat with his cutlery.
After he retired, he and Anne moved to the UK in 2014 to be near Adam, who is CEO of Awin marketing, and Tania, who is a management consultant, and their children. Of the children of his first marriage, David runs a legal solutions company and lives in Marbella, Jonathan is a neurologist in Washington, while Leon is a pharmacist in Dublin.
Although ill with cancer and in residential care, Ross’ irrepressible personality still saw him entertain others with chat and songs. “He was never depressed in the face of adversity,” said Anne, “and there was lots of adversity in his life.”
Edmund Ross is survived by his wife Anne and his children David, Jonathan, Leon, Adam and Tania. He was predeceased in 2016 by his first wife, Maureen, who moved to Australia after their separation. He is also survived by his 10 grandchildren. His funeral took place at the Woodland Cemetery, Cheshunt, near Enfield, London.
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