Picturing Dublin in the late 20th century

A remarkable collection of photographs held at Dublin City Library and Archive brings Dublin of the late 20th century to life. The Donal McEnroe Photographic Collection, comprising some 17,000 images, puts the spotlight on life in the capital from the late 1970s to the early 2000s. Covering people, places, events, transport, shops, social issues and Dublin by night, the collection captures everyday life in the city. The range and quality of the images makes this collection very suitable for digitisation.

The images of Dublin cinemas (two of which are shown here) conjure up the films that we enjoyed in times gone by and the cinemas we liked to visit. The photograph of the Screen Cinema on College Street, shown on the left, is from 2002. The photograph of the Savoy Cinema in O'Connell Street (on the right) is from 2001 and we can see posters for the films then on show. Here is a poster for 'Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'.

Cormac O'Brien, work experience intern from The National Learning Network, has begun digitisation of the collection. He has begun with places and he has several hundred images scanned already.