Ireland
Susan Wood

This full-colour kaleidoscope of over 150 photographs by one of North America’s leading photographers evokes a pre-Celtic Tiger Ireland, recording a world on the cusp of radical change, a time-capsule of personalities and landscapes, professions and activities, caught in the amber of the camera’s eye. Beginning with an Irish assignment from British Vogue in 1969, Woods’ interest deepened by marriage to two Irish husbands, and she developed an abiding love for the people and places documented in subsequent decades. This valentine to Ireland is now gathered into one resonant volume of images and visual epiphanies. The work ranges across the Irish countryside. Departing from Dublin and Wicklow, it extends to Roscommon and the Shannon estuary, recording street scenes, travellers, the hunt, cattle marts, pub, cottage and country-house interiors. Six photo-essays focus on leading personalities; Garech Brown of Luggala, founder of Claddagh Records; the late Desmond Fitzgerald, last knight of Glin; Marina Guinness, chatelaine; J.P. Donleavy, novelist, at home in Westmeath; Hector McDonnell, artist, at home in Glenarm; and Tim Pat Coogan, historian. ¹

Susan Wood Richardson is an internationally published photographer and journalist. The winner of many Art Director and Clio awards, her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries worldwide. Throughout the 1970’s and 80’s, Susan’s editorial and advertising work could be seen on a weekly basis in magazines such as Vogue, Look, Life, People and New York Magazine. Susan was a regular contributor to Look Magazine, most notably for a cover story on John Lennon and Yoko Ono. Susan also worked for 20th Century Fox, Paramount Pictures and United Artists and was the stills photographer on the set of Easy Rider. ²

The Lilliput Press is one of Ireland’s smallest and most prestigious publishing houses. The Lilliput Press was founded in 1984 by Antony Farrell in County Westmeath. Jonathan Swift spent his summers in a house nearby, and derived the name Lilliput from a local townland. The office was moved to its present locale in Arbour Hill, Stoneybatter, Dublin 7, in 1989. More than 500 titles have appear under its imprint; these encompass art, music (both traditional and popular Irish music) architecture, autobiography and memoir, biography and history, ecology and environmentalism, essays and literary criticism, philosophy, current affairs and popular culture, fiction, drama and poetry, all broadly focused on Irish themes. They are particularly focused on publishing high quality books about Irish history, and have covered a wide range of topics in this area alone.