In 1970s Ireland a group of school friends were discovering life and all that goes with it. I was one of then and always seemed to have a camera to hand. I had discovered I liked – what I now know as – page layout and graphic design.

Back then we would escape the city of Dublin at any opportunity, mostly to Brittas Bay, just sixty-five kilometers south of the capital, but back then it was only about forty miles.

It was there that Niall’s parents, Jim & May McGowan had a mobile home.  They very generously let us use it when they were not there. We did a lot of growing up in O’Driscoll’s field. Although my wife might argue that I have a way to go yet.

Later I would escape Ireland altogether and forever carry the emigrant’s guilt at leaving. Father Ted actor Ardal O’Hanlon sums it up well in his stage show: “I’m Irish, and very proud to be Irish. And like the true Irishman I am, I don’t live there anymore.”

But I digress. Back in the 1970’s I gathered the pictures we took into photo albums which, to this day, are sitting on a bookshelf in my home office in Suffolk, England.

I should have done this long ago, but it’s about time I shared them.  Originally I planned to create an exact copy of the albums, but print and web are different technologies. What we have here is a digital recreation with some light editing and explanations along the way.

Tony