Gearóid Cheaist Ó Catháin, the last child to live on the Great Blasket Island, with Dáithí de Mórdha, The Great Blasket Centre, in front of a photograph of Gearóid with his Grandfather Maurice Mhuiris Ó Catháin, taken by Dan MacMonagle after the Island was evacuated in 1953. (Photo: Ciarán Walsh)
Ciarán Walsh curated ‘An Island Portrait’ in 2012 in partnership with Dáithí de Mórdha, archivist with Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir (The Great Blasket Centre) in Dún Chaoin. The exhibition featured photographs from the archives of Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir. The exhibition covered the period 1892 to 2011, from the earliest known photographs of the island to contemporary photographs of the islanders. It was designed to accompany the publication of a photographic history of the Blasket community, with text by Micheál de Mórdha (Director) and Dáithí de Mórdha (archivist/curator). The photographs were edited by Ciarán Walsh and the book combines classic ‘outsider’ views of the islanders and their way of life with photographs from family albums
Alma Curtin. 1892. The slip n the Great Blasket Island (with the permission of Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir).
Life on the Blasket Islands as never seen before.
Photography plays a major part in telling the story of the Great Blasket Island. Thousands of photographs held in the archive of Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir cover a wide range of material, from the private mementoes of family members to the work of folklorists, press photographs, and much more. The first photographs of the Great Blasket were taken by Alma Curtis in 1891. Browne visited the island in 1897 and compiled an album of ethnographic photographs, including an anthropometric portrait of a person Dáithí de Mórdha identified a Tomás Ó Criomhtain aka An tOileánach (the Islander) and one of the most celebrated figures of the Blasket Island community. Synge arrived in 1905 and Del Rio, a Galician, compiled a small but exquisite collection in 1928 that epitomises ethnographic and folklore interest in the islanders over several decades.
Charle R. Browne took this shot of typical Irish ‘natives’ in 1897. It is the earliest known portrait of Tomás Ó Criomhtain (middle). Courtesy of the Board of Trinity College, University of Dublin.
For the next sixty years or so the islanders and the island would be photographed by visitors to the island. Photographs were also taken by the children of people who had left to live abroad. Letters from America carried photographs of two communities that lived worlds apart, but were Blasket islanders at heart. Most moving is a portrait of Dónal Ó Criomhthain who drowned in 1905 attempting to save Eibhlín Nic Niocail, linguist, feminist and apparently the love interest of Patrick Pearse. The most telling of all is a series of photographs that record the dwindling number of children attending the school, until Gearóid Cheaist Ó Catháin was the last child left and became known as the loneliest child in the world.
The exhibition was an extraordinary picture of an island community and a chronicle of the its death The last of the islanders were evacuated in 1953, but the island was never abandoned. It is still at the heart of a community which remembers the resilience and spirit of its people. This exhibition was a snapshot caught the spirit of community, from the excitement of its discovery by ethnographers and folklorists at the end of the 19th century and early twentieth, through the heyday of the thirties, the decline of the forties, and its legacy since 1953. Many of these photographs had never been seen in public and the view was that of the islanders and the people who witnessed their lives, up close and in person.
Don MacMonagle. 2011. Micheal Kearney, the oldest surviving person born on the Blasket Islands holds a treasured photogra of himself and friends on Trá Ban, the beach on the island. Included are Maidhc Sheain Team O’Cearnaigh, Muiris O’Cathain, Thomas Sheaisi O’Cearnaigh, Muiris Mhaidhc Lean O’Guithin, Tomas Sheain Team O’Cearnaigh, Mairtin Sheain Team and Padraig Sheain Team O’Cearnaigh (with the permission of Ionad an Bhlascaoid Mhóir).