Book Launch tonight

CabanSail

Twenty-five years photographing and three years a Dublin Camera Club member, photographer John Hall has just had his first book of photographs, A Tale of Two Cities, published by Currach Press.


"I have always been fascinated by the way the progress of each of the two cities is forever captured in it's architectural heritage and how the differences in the status of their buildings mark clearly the different degrees of status between the capital and the second city."


His book examines Dublin and Cork through their architecture and geography. Cork has the tallest building in Ireland, the longest building in Ireland, the best hurling, football and rugby players and road-bowlers – or so Cork people would have the rest of the world believe. No one outdoes Corkonians in independence of spirit or self-regard or in their loyalty to their native city. But Dublin, being the capital city, has all the trappings of power, big business, government and national culture.


"Leaving Cork and making my home in Dublin has made me appreciate more the visual aspect of both cities. I've travelled widely since leaving Cork and have visited many cities and few have the same attraction as either Cork or Dublin".


In A Tale of Two Cities, photographer John Hall allows his images to speak more loudly than words, conjuring a rebel port in Munster, much of whose maritime greatness is in the past, and a capital city that was once the second city of a great Empire and never again reached the pride and elegance of the late eighteenth century. He brings to life churches and steeples, libraries and monuments that represent great Corkmen like Michael Collins and Tomás McCurtain on the one hand and national figures like Daniel O’Connell and Charles Stewart Parnell on the other. Clocks, banks, wharves, breweries and railway viaducts attract his attention, as well as numerous aspects of the Liffey and the Lee, the two beautiful rivers that are the pulse of the two great cities.


Author and photographer John Hall was born in Cork in 1959 and educated at UCC but left his native city many years ago. He lives in Dublin, with his wife Nicola, and children Lachlan, Alix and Robert.