Tomás Ó Muircheartaigh

The prolific and talented amateur photographer is perhaps best remembered for capturing the everyday life of ordinary people living in rural Ireland, especially in Gaeltacht districts. He worked for the Department of Education for much of his life, devoting his spare time to hill walking and his love of Irish language and culture, themes reflected in his photographic work.

A selection of his photographic work was published posthumously in 1970, in a book titled An Muircheartach, a work which drew considerable critical acclaim. Sadly, the original film negatives used in the production did not survive, but happily more than a thousand of his original 35mm negatives were donated to the Irish Folklore Commission, and many of these complement the series of images that appear in An Muircheartach.