Back in February I was at the book launch of Fingal Through Old Picture Postcards, researched, compiled and written by Jacinta Judge, the senior librarian in charge of Fingal Local Studies.
The launch was at the Fingal Local Studies Department, Clonmel House, Swords and walking around the display room it became clear that the book contains only a sample of a large postcard collection of the Fingal area dating from the early twentieth century.
I bought a copy of the book and it planted a seed of an idea. It was to try and recreate the images depicted in the postcards by taking photographs of the locations as they are now. The postcards show Fingal in a time when it was less built up and it would be interesting to be able to see the comparison between then and now.
The first thing I needed was permission to use the postcard images, so I contacted Jacinta Judge and she kindly agreed to allow me to scan and use them for my posts.
So now all I have to do is take the photographs.
I’ve started with Baldoyle and I’ve already learned that it isn’t going to be easy.
Here is Baldoyle (and Sutton) as shown in a postcard in Jacinta’s book.
(The image is courtesy of the Fingal Local Studies Collection.)
The view is from above the houses and you can see clearly across to Howth Head.
To have a chance of reproducing that shot I’d need a very tall ladder or a small crane. Neither were available on the day!
So I’m going to show you three pictures, the scanned postcard, a photo looking from the Coast Road to Main Street Baldoyle and a photo looking at Howth from the promenade at Baldoyle.
Although the area has built up the church at Baldoyle is still a prominent feature and the views across to Howth, Ireland’s Eye and Lambay are wonderful.
I intend continuing the series slowly and irregularly over time, and although I won’t be able to photograph every scene in Jacinta’s book (some landmarks don’t exist anymore) I’ll try to get most of them.
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