Six Degrees of Separation
The picture hereunder features Rooney’s Restaurant, once situated on Friar Street, Thurles on the left hand side, travelling west, close to the junctions of Croke Street (South), Liberty Square (East) and Abbey Road (West).
This same photograph was possibly taken in the mid 1980’s.
[Post Card Courtesy Mr Seamus O’Driscoll, (O’ Driscoll’s Garden Centre) Mill Road, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.]
We have confirmed that the man standing in the doorway was Mr John Joe Ryan, [a Camán (Irish: Hurley) maker], latter who once resided at No.1 Cabra Terrace, Thurles, Co. Tipperary.
The same featured Mr Ryan was the father of Thurles Freelance Journalist, Author and Poet Mr Tom Ryan, who currently resides at “Iona”, Rahealty, Thurles, Co Tipperary, and who regularly contributes to the Thurles.Info. website.
Mr John Joe Ryan sadly passed away in 1990.
The monochrome picture above was captured by photographer, novelist and painter, Jinnie (Jennifer) Fiennes [Wife of photographer Mark Fiennes (Married 1961) and the mother of English actor, film producer, director and Unicef UK ambassador Ralph Fiennes, who featured in the films “Schindler’s List“, “The English Patient” and the Bond movie “Skyfall“, to name but a few.]
Same picture was published and distributed as a post card having been printed here in Ireland by Thompson Price Ltd in 1980, possibly while the Fiennes Family were then living in County Kilkenny.
Sadly, Jinnie Fiennes was diagnosed with breast cancer in the 1980’s and passed away on December 28th 1993, at Odstock, Wiltshire, UK, aged just 55 years.
That’s my grandad. Tom was telling me about this after he spoke to you. Very interesting. How do you know she took the photo? Is it documented? Is this just guesswork based on her being in the country at the time?
Thanks
Mary
No. This is fact. Jinnie Fiennes captured some wonderful, what I call, rural character photographs, mostly in the west of Ireland, while her and photographer husband Mark lived near Bantry Bay. Despite her troubled youth, abused physically by her ex-lndian army officer father; which included a suicide attempt, her work bears similiarity to the great Fr. Francis Patrick Mary Browne. The Fiennes family are described as living on a hand-to-mouth existence, selling photographs of vanishing Irish life, which is a point in case with regards to this wonderful photo.
I will send you a copy of the photo & proof of the the photographers work in relation to this picture later.
George Willoughby