Artist's Corner:

“Good Friday, Seán McDermott Street, Dublin 1983”. A photograph by Tony O’Shea.

20th July 2021, 12am

This week, in our “Artists Corner’, ICC Digital brings you another photograph from the gallery of the great Irish photographer Tony O’Shea.

Last week we brought you O’Shea’s poignant image of young  Dublin boys carrying crosses through the streets of Dublin, on Good Friday, Easter 1983 Today we bring you another powerful photograph which captures the old Easter traditions which marked Good Friday. These have now become lost in the fast changing contemporary Dublin of today.

This photo captures an Easter Procession, but it also captures the free spirit and joy which the inner city children of North Side Dublin embody.

The photographs is called

Good Friday, Seán McDermott Street, Dublin 1983..

This photograph’s was part of the  major exhibition of Tony’s work, which was commissioned and curated by  ‘The Gallery Of photography, Ireland’. The exhibition was accompanied by a new publication, Tony O Shea’s  “The Light Of Day” (by RRB Books), which has an essay by Irish writer Colm Tóibín.

About Tony O’Shea

Tony O’Shea, now age 73, is a legendary Irish documentary photographer. His book Dubliners occupies a pivotal role in the history of Irish photography and defines the territory that O’Shea made so inimitably his own – the everyday life of ordinary people, their joys and sorrows, their struggles and triumphs, the rituals that they use to make sense of their lives.

Tony O’Shea studied English and Philosophy at University College Dublin and towards the end of the 1970s he took up photography. By 1981 he’d begun working full-time as a photographer with ‘In Dublin’ Magazine’ and went on to work for Sunday Business Post for many years. His first book Dubliners,  also included a text by Colm Tóibín was published by Macdonald Illustrated.

Tony O’Shea’s photographs and his exhibition “The Light Of Day” are available to buy from ‘The Gallery Of Photography – Ireland’  https://www.photobooks.site/

His book “The Light of Day” is available to buy from RRB Books

His book ‘Dubliners’ is available to buy on Amazon