OLD IRELAND IN BLACK AND WHITE

Corkoninan Dennis Dinneen was born in 1927 and founded Macroom Photographic Services in 1953. For the next three decades, Dennis provided photos for passports and driving licences, took individual and family portraits, and captured images of the patrons in the family bar which he presided over. Developing his skills as a photographer outside the studio, he also photographed weddings, religious ceremonies, theatre productions, sporting events, and a variety of other local occasions. Over his career as a photographer, Dennis exposed an estimated 50,000 negatives before his passing in 1985. A large selection of these were destroyed by a fire in 1981 but many also remain. The remnants of the studio’s darkroom are present to this day, though barely recognisable, in the upstairs loft at the back of the bar which is run by his sons, Lawrence and Dennis. Small Town Portraits is a collection of faces from the place.