Snapshots in time worth a second fly-over

ALEXANDER CAMPBELL MORGAN had been a wartime pilot for the Royal Artillery Air Corps and, in peacetime, the intrepid airman known as ‘Monkey’ launched a career in aerial photography.

For several years he roamed Ireland’s skies, photographing our cities and towns and capturing places of great natural beauty and well as buildings of historic importance.

His black and white photos were a sensation when they were published by the Irish

Independent in the weekly ‘Views from the Air’ series in 1957 and they provide an intriguing snapshot of how the country looked in the middle part of the 20th century.

The photos were taken between 1951 and 1958 and show an Ireland that few people at the time would ever have seen before. With air travel so costly, only a select few could enjoy such a vantage.

Today, his photos document buildings that are no more and demonstrate by how much our built environment has grown and evolved. They also show an Ireland that was still trying to find its feet as an independent nation and in a decade blighted by emigration.

Tragically, Captain Morgan was killed in a plane crash in January 1958 — but the wonderful photographs he left behind are an enduring legacy.

Over the past month, we have toured the entire country, gazing from above at every county on the island. Thanks to the huge reaction to the series and the calls for more photos, we’re embarking on a second ‘fly-over’.

A new four-week series kicks off this week with a look at Munster as viewed from Morgan’s cockpit. There are wonderful images of Cork and Limerick cities and a wide selection of towns and villages in all six of the Munster counties.