Christmas Eve in Cork, and the fog had settled over the south channel of the Lee and stayed put all morning. It was 2005, and the banks of the river looked very different. The old tax office still stood on Sullivan’s Quay, and the Peace Park opposite still had trees and overgrown shrubs hanging over…

The brushes spin past in blue and yellow while a black Micra sits in the middle of the cycle. This was 2005, so the driver had a newspaper open across the wheel to fill the couple of minutes it took. Water beads across the bonnet and the Cork plate, 98-C-6325, reads clearly through the spray….

The Dunnes Stores on St. Patrick’s Street, Cork was only a muddy construction site in March 2008. Only the distinctive yellow front of the building remained at this time.

Cork was wrapped in a thick fog on a mild Christmas Eve in 2005. Children were running around a painted maze on the ground near the National Monument on Grand Parade and having a great time. Twenty years ago! So much has changed.

Father Mathew Hall in Cork is well known to generations of school kids who participated in the annual Feis Maitiú 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. I hope they still play bingo…

A friend’s cat wandering out of a hedgerow on to the gate of a field on a lovely July evening many years ago.

A huge crowd gathered around a man on stilts holding 3 flaming torches on St. Patrick Street, Cork in 2006. See how homogeneous the crowd is? A similar photo today would show a much more diverse set of people in modern Ireland. Edit: Since this caused quite a commotion on Facebook, I just want to…

This was twenty years ago on St. Patrick Street, Cork. Not in December obviously, but in May when children all over the country were celebrating their first communion.

When you want to play a game of football, you need to set your sights high and aim big. No point playing with 2 jumpers for the goalposts when you can bring the real thing from home!

Many years ago while travelling on the Dingle Peninsula we came across a donkey in a field in Muiríoch. I posted a photo of him in 2007 and again in 2008 but I happened to come across this photo of him and did a little work on the photo. There’s a chance this donkey is…

It was October 2007, and I was in Cobh to photograph the game between Cobh Ramblers and Dundalk FC. The visitors were beaten 1-0 but Chris Bennion stopped this attempt on goal. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve photographed a football game, but this was the first one, a long…

Cork City during the height of the Celtic Tiger era, captured in 2007 when Ireland’s construction boom was at its peak and the city skyline was dominated by cranes building new office blocks and apartments, including the Elysian Tower. It would all come crashing down financially within a year. Some apartments in the Elysian were…