May 2010

When Raymonde Standun set about photographing the local people of the South Connemara Gaeltacht, she quickly sensed that here were stories to be told that lay beyond the reach a camera. Unique places, unique people, a nucleus of Irish culture, its language, music and dance. "Voices of Connemara" wants to keep this heritage alive in pictures as well as the written word. The book contains 51 interviews among them: Martin Flaherty on the Black and Tans; Julia Greaney on the Fair Day at Spiddal; Cait Nic an Iomaire on making her own wedding dress; and Festy Conlon on his father's first fife. Set against Standun's stunning images are stories of poitin for two bob, the baker's island-delivery boat and the trials of linefishing, alongside darker tales still vibrant in the collective memory, of landlord brutality, famine and emigration. Edited by Bill Long, who also introduces the volume, here are the extraordinary voices of the ordinary people of Connemara, voices of the living as well as the dead.