Father Mathew Hall in Cork is well known to generations of school kids who participated in the annual Feis Maitiรบ there. This is what it looked like in 2006 and while it is still blue, the overhang appears to be gone if you look at it in Google Maps.
December was surprisingly mild, at times, and allowed people to stand outside pubs in relative comfort. Not like now. It’s so cold, but January is always like that.
You know that weird liminal period between Christmas and whenever someone finally bothers to take the decorations down? This is it, captured in one slightly surreal shot on Cornmarket Street. That tree was still up on January 2nd, but I expect it’ll be gone in a day or two now.
The light effect on the steel table in the foreground was an accidental discovery! This was a quick hand held shot, not some long exposure or twisty zoomy multiple shots merged together!
It’s January. I wish they’d leave the lights up for January. It’s so gloomy and dark without the extra bit of festivity of the lights.
A year after COVID-19 hit Irish shores and people were still being extra careful, even wearing masks outside where there was little risk of infection.
Better to be safe than sorry.
Here we are in 2026, and people are still denying that COVID-19 was a problem, while there’s a screenshot going around of a tweet by an “MD” who predicted that everyone who got the vaccine would be dead by the end of 2025. We’re still around. LOL.
The Stunning have been part of Irish musical life since the late 80s with such hits as “Brewing up a Storm”, “Everything That Rises”, and “Half Past Two”. It was incredible to see them live in Cyprus Avenue!
Panning photos is a nice way to burn through some photos and sometimes a photo or two will look half decent. It’s very hit-and-miss. You have to start panning your camera with the car and then hit the shutter while panning, hoping that you’re staying on your subject. A fun little exercise. ๐
These images were shot on Grand Parade in Cork on a cold December evening when I was out with Blarney Photography Club a few weeks ago.
I created a new WordPress plugin. This one shows the archives on this blog as a (large) thumbnail gallery that will show each image in a lightbox. I had the idea of using the lightbox WordPress ships with to show gallery images, and it worked out!
Consider installing a browser extension that blocks ads and other malicious scripts in your browser to protect your privacy and security. Here are a few options.
uBlock Origin is a free, open source, ad blocker for your browser.
Use pi-hole if you have a spare Raspberry Pi on your network.
Set the private DNS settings on your phone to dns.adguard.com to block adverts and trackers.