At the centre of this book is an idea of peripherality, of being on the edge of things. Ireland lies on the edge of Europe, and just over the western edge of Ireland, in vie but adrift, lie all those other islands from Cape Clear to Rathlin. For those still populated islands there is the continual trembling between emigration and abandonment, its emigrant sons and daughters caught in the double-edged process of looking onwards and backwards.
On the edge of things our vision can become distorted, even surreal. On the edge of things the horizon is always in view, like a seam between the dream-world and the real world. One of the strengths of these images is their insistence of that a horizon can be viewed from different directions. The dreams and realities of natives and emigrants can become reversed or confused. It is this perspective that gives the photographs their edge: people speaking the same language but through different body languages.
Publishers: DIT & Gallery of Photography 1996
Softcover copies available through the contact form
Hardcover edition out of print