Slideshow of vintage Kinvara

Last May, 88-year-old Robert Cresswell, a retired professor from the Sorbonne in Paris, donated his archive of photographs, slides and film footage of Kinvara to Ireland.
A slide show of a selection of these images from the town from 1956-57 will be held in Johnston’s Hall, Kinvara this Friday night at 8.30pm. This will include the colour slides and film footage not yet shown in Kinvara.
A comprehensive selection of the images is now also available on the Kinvara website (kinvara.com).
The archive, which featured recently on RTÉ Nationwide, has also been taken on as a project by transition-year students from Gort Community School, whose task will include helping in identifying people in the photographs.
Robert Cresswell lived for 15 months in Kinvara while conducting his anthropological studies during the mid-1950s.
In 1969, based on his research, the Institut d’Ethnologie (Paris) published his book, Une communauté rurale de l’Irlande (A rural community in Ireland). His work is the only major anthropological study from County Galway that became internationally renowned and is still respected and read to this day.
Cresswell took some 450 black and white photographs in Kinvara, as well as approximately 90 colour slides and some 16mm film footage. His photographs include landscapes, haymaking, ploughing scenes, seaweed gathering as fertiliser (climíní); sheep shearing, dipping and fair-days; Blacksmith’s forge at work; Market Square: fairs and crowds addressed by politicians, Corpus Christi procession, domestic scenes and family portraits.
A copy of the digital images of the photographs has already been made available to the University of Ireland, Galway, which will store the negatives. The film material is with the Irish Film Institute.
A copy of the digital images of the photographs has also been provided to the Galway County Library and to the Museum of Country Life. Senior curator Dr Séamas Mac Philib said that he was impressed by the quality of the images and their importance as a document of social history.
Caoilte Breatnach, Kinvara, has co-ordinated the project on behalf of the local community, having first visited the retired professor in Paris in 2006.  On May 17 last, Mr Cresswell handed over his archive. 
“We are very grateful to Mr Cresswell. His visual material gives us an important view of Kinvara in the 1950s and provides us with a valuable addition to the historical records of the locality. This record of rural life can help to engender pride and respect for the local environment and, combined with further research, it can be of great benefit in celebrating the cultural and historical heritage of the area. Reaction to date, both locally and nationally, has been very positive,” he said.