Author interview: Celebrating the Irish brothers who captured their moments in time

Irish Examiner

01-08-2025

Filmmaker Darina Clancy can't recall a time when she did not know about the Horgan brothers.
Dubbed the 'Irish Lumières', after their French contemporaries, they were pioneers in the fields of photography and cinema, leaving behind an invaluable chronicle of a formative chapter in our creative history.
The three brothers — Thomas, James, and Philip — were born in the 1870s in Youghal, Co Cork, which inspired much of their groundbreaking work.
Their output includes the earliest surviving Irish animation, featuring a tilting and twirling Youghal Town Hall Clock.
In 1917, they opened the Horgan Picture Theatre in the town, where they screened The Youghal Gazette, a newsreel featuring events of local interest.
Given Clancy's own interest in the visual medium and the fact that she grew up just outside the seaside town, it was perhaps inevitable that she would be fascinated by the brothers from an early age.
She describes them not only in terms of their work in cinema and photography, but also as adventurers, experimenters, and entrepreneurs.
'I've known about them all my life, really. There is a Horgan photograph in so many establishments and houses in Youghal.
'Generally people's reaction to their story is either, 'oh, we have a picture of theirs or I didn't realise we had a Horgan photograph'.'
A group outside the Horgan Photographic Studio in Youghal, Co Cork, understood to feature Henry Ford. Picture: Horgan family collection
Clancy's curiosity about the brothers and her desire to bring their achievements to a wider audience became a passion project for her, resulting in a documentary, Na Lumière Gaelacha, which was screened on TG4 late last year.
This is now joined by an accompanying book featuring a collection of photographs taken by the brothers.
Working with the Horgan family on the documentary made Clancy even more determined to do the brothers' story justice.
She says their cinematic achievements overshadowed their photographic exploits to a certain extent, something she wanted to address by bringing their images together in an accessible collection.
'Obviously in a 50-minute documentary, you can only do so much. When it comes to the Horgan brothers, a lot of emphasis is given to the films and animations they made but if you study their photographic collection, it is unlike any that I know of,' she says.
While many photographs of the time are made up of landscapes or studio portraits, Clancy says the images taken by the Horgans have a distinctive focus and quality.
The promenade on Youghal Front Strand. Picture: Horgan family collection
'A lot of photographs from that era are stilted or posed, while many of the glass plates that survived from the Horgans were candid family photographs where the people are laughing, smiling, and having fun.
'The people are clearly very familiar with the Horgans and their camerawork and they are behaving naturally,' she says.
The book features a particularly poignant image, the oldest existing picture of the Horgan brothers as young boys, taken with a pinhole camera acquired from Merrick's store, which is dated between 1887 and 1889.
The Horgans were left in a precarious financial position when their father died at age 42 from an asthma attack, and were close to being sent to the workhouse.
Their mother Elizabeth ensured they apprenticed as shoemakers, like their father, but their natural curiosity about photography later turned into a lucrative business for them.
Clancy says: 'Even when they started their own shoemaking business, they were taking photographs, and it became more financially beneficial to them.
'Because there were three of them, one could be doing the shoemaking while the others were doing the photography.
'It allowed them to flourish business-wise no matter what they were doing. They worked very closely together until they passed away.'
Fishermen with their catch and a child. Picture: Horgan family collection
The era in which the Horgans worked was a turbulent one, spanning the Civil War and the War of Independence, reflected in the images of key historic events filtered through a local lens.
They took portraits of soldiers who never returned home from the First World War and filmed the return of hunger strikers from Wormwood Scrubs prison.
The photographs also show the ordinary side of life during extraordinary times.
The book features photos from the brothers' magic lantern shows which they brought to villages and townlands surrounding Youghal, providing a welcome source of entertainment to rural areas.
They would also go to great lengths to stage their images, creating elaborate sets and costumes.
'You have these sets where they have blimps, cars, and boats. You have people swimming, at the beach, boating … people are just having fun.
'It's at a time and place in history when you automatically think everything was awful but in these photographs it shows a very calm, relaxed lifestyle,' Clancy says.
Rope making with flax along the Rope Walk near the old town walls in Youghal, Co Cork. Picture: Horgan family collection
As well as photographs held by the Horgan family, Clancy also discovered other images in her research which feature in the book.
One of these is a picture of the orchestra which played a live and often improvised accompaniment to films shown in the Youghal cinema.
It features members of the family, including pianist Mazie Horgan and James himself with his own handmade cello.
'There are eight instruments, which would have been a big deal at the time.
'A lot of the cinematic historians have commented on what a fabulous picture it is,' says Clancy.
Support for the documentary and the book has been significant, reflecting the huge pride the local community has in the achievements and legacy of the Horgan brothers, says Clancy.
'For about six months after the documentary, I literally couldn't go into a shop for milk without people telling me about their memories.
'The buy-in from the community at home in terms of producing the documentary and the book has been massive — the story also belongs to them.'
The significance of the Horgan brothers' photographic archive in terms of social history can't be underestimated, adds Clancy.
'They really give a snapshot of what Ireland was like at the time of British rule, photographed by indigenous people living in a small rural area that was heavily influenced by the British,' she says.
'It is really important that these were Irish people photographing Irish people within their own community — often it would have been wealthy people from places like Britain coming in and photographing and filming them.
'You really see that in the maritime photographs, for example, the blessing of the boats, where the brothers are hopping on punts with the fishermen and taking photographs.'
Clancy says while many of the Horgan images are of local interest, they have a universal appeal.
'It is not just a story about Youghal, it is a story about Ireland, it is a book for the entire country and Irish people living abroad.'
In a world where visual images are now mainly filtered through screens, Clancy says a physical record of the Horgan photographs is more important than ever.
'It really was a labour of love,' she says.
'I am very grateful to have held some of the glass plate negatives — knowing that these are over 100 years old and were held by the Horgans themselves, there is a lot of weight there.
'For me, and the family, to have all of this in a book where people can reference it is really important — to be able to take your time, instead of scrolling or flicking past them on a screen.'
Na Lumière Gaelacha can be viewed on the TG4 Player. The Horgan
Youghal Gazette films can be accessed at www.ifiarchiveplayer.ie