I was there too
This year marks the 30th anniversary of the passing of Rory Gallagher, a legend in rock and roll, at a relatively young age.
Today in Fitzgerald Park we were treated to a great music session on a beautiful, sunny day as the city celebrates Rory’s music and life. Here are a few photos from the gig. You can watch the entire thing on YouTube below. Watch carefully. You’ll spot me there a few times!
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 146mm |
| ISO | 1000 |
| Shutter speed | 1/320s |
Step inside St Fin Barre’s Cathedral this week, and you’ll be greeted not just by the soaring Gothic arches and intricate stained-glass, but by a blazing sun right in the heart of Cork. The Helios exhibition, a six-metre-wide glowing sculpture by UK artist Luke Jerram, has transformed the cathedral’s nave into a cosmic spectacle for the Cork Midsummer Festival. The installation is more than just a visual treat. It’s a full sensory experience, with detailed solar imagery and a soundtrack of real NASA recordings of the sun. It’s a surreal and awe-inspiring blend of old and new: the ancient spirit of the cathedral meets the cutting edge of contemporary art, inviting visitors to reflect on the power and presence of the sun in a truly unique setting.
The Helios sculpture is built to scale, with each centimetre representing 2,300 km of the real sun’s surface, and features detailed representations of sunspots and solar flares, all accompanied by a soundtrack of live NASA recordings of the sun.
| Aperture | ƒ/2.2 |
| Camera | Galaxy S23 Ultra |
| Focal length | 2.2mm |
| ISO | 1250 |
| Shutter speed | 1/25s |
It’s reassuring to see lifebuoys at the beach, especially when the sea is rough. Unfortunately, not every person in distress in the water can be saved, as has happened at this beach in Youghal in the past.
| Aperture | ƒ/6.3 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 106mm |
| ISO | 160 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
A visit to the market in Skibbereen in 2019 was productive. I’ve posted a number of photos from that hour or so on here over the years, and there are still a few more to go.
August 2019 feels like a lifetime ago.
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | ILCE-7M3 |
| Focal length | 16mm |
| ISO | 320 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
The pro Palestinian rally on Grand Parade today was huge, with a larger than usual turnout from all over Cork. It was energising seeing people from all walks of life, and all ages gather to hear speakers talk about the ongoing genocide in Gaza, and urge the Irish government to pass the occupied territories bill which would ban trade from illegally occupied Palestinian territories.
The Irish Examiner has a good article on the rally. (backup)
| Aperture | ƒ/9 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 30mm |
| ISO | 640 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
Just a few months shy of ten years ago, we’d visited Sherkin Island and as we were leaving I spotted a man on a RIB talking to two others on their dingy. It was a lovely warm August day, just before school was about to start again.
In the background is the famous Baltimore Beacon, built in 1849 as a navigation guide.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 6D |
| Focal length | 105mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
The sun was particularly active last weekend, promising spectacular aurora with KP values of over 7. Unfortunately, the expected nighttime display failed to materialise. Instead, I swung my camera around and took 10 30-second exposures of the night sky, with the trees of a nearby road.
After combining them in Photoshop this is what you get. Not bad for 300 seconds.
Star trails form circular patterns around the celestial pole due to the Earth’s rotation, and in the Northern Hemisphere, these circles are centred on Polaris, the North Star, which barely moves at all in the sky. I wasn’t sure where Polaris was, but it looks like it’s just off the photo.
| Aperture | ƒ/2.8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 1600 |
| Shutter speed | 30s |
A pair of Eircom phone booths on St. Patrick Street, Cork, pictured in 2005.
The phones were there until at least 2022, but Eir announced a few years ago that they’d be removing their public phone booths, so away they go.
| Aperture | ƒ/13 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 20D |
| Focal length | 55mm |
| ISO | 400 |
| Shutter speed | 1/320s |
A little dog looks out of a window of his home on Barrack Street, Cork. He must be very used to passing foot traffic. He never barked once!
| Aperture | ƒ/1.7 |
| Camera | Galaxy S23 Ultra |
| Focal length | 6.3mm |
| ISO | 10 |
| Shutter speed | 1/390s |
Every Saturday there’s a rally in Cork supporting the people of Gaza and protesting the awful genocide being carried out by the IDF.
| Aperture | ƒ/4 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 160 |
| Shutter speed | 1/500s |
The sun had set by the time I got into the city to photograph the Andalucía. Twenty minutes earlier, the sun was shining on it and made for a spectacular photo.
I made a bracketed shot from further down the quay because there were bright lights on the front of the boat that would make a shot from that side difficult. I like this shot anyway, as it captures the old with the new. The buildings at the quayside are old, the ship is a replica of an old ship and other buildings nearby are new and modern.
I did take some more photos. A rather drunk man asked me to take a photo of him with the ship, using his phone. A few minutes later, he asked me to photograph him in front of Penrose House here and then went off home.
So, I discovered that the Galeón Andalucía is not just a static museum piece. It is the only replica of a 16th-17th century Spanish galleon in the world that actively sails today, having travelled over 80,000 miles and visited ports on four continents since its launch in 2009.
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 400 |
| Shutter speed | 1/6s |
One more from last week. This time, the long exposure shot is of a bus heading to Parnell Place in Cork. The traffic light had just turned green, so the bus was driving slowly, accelerating as it went. It made a colourful impression on the digital sensor of my camera!
| Aperture | ƒ/8 |
| Camera | ILCE-7RM5 |
| Focal length | 24mm |
| ISO | 50 |
| Shutter speed | 4s |
