THE LAST TIME I MET DAVID

Sarah Griffin writes from San Francisco after a meeting with me  in town on a trip home!

The last time I met David Monahan was three nights before I emigrated: here, we sat in the Metro Cafe off Grafton Street, nine months later. I was at home for two weeks to have Christmas with my family: breaking the first year away down the middle with the familiarity of Dublin in winter. He called to see if I was around for a catch-up. In the myriad of pints and family gatherings, I knew I had to talk to him again - I remembered how I had almost gone and poured all my anxieties about leaving home out to him in his car after the photoshoot, on my way to my going away party. Here is my story, I am terrified because I am not terrified, I am ready to go, I think, I think, I hope – I'm pretty sure that was how it went, all the way from the Bayside graveyard to Hartcourt Street. He'd met so many people on the same path as I was: sort of like the ferryman folks met on their way down the River Styx, you meet David before you emigrate. Thing is, he doesn't take the pennies from your eyes, but instead snaps your image on film: with that exchange, you are one of the people who slipped away to see the world, leaving Ireland on the other side.

IT'S NOT ALWAYS A WALK IN THE PARK!

Life in modern Ireland certainly is tough,no doubt about.
And it gets harder!
The next round of cuts to pay are all lined up,add a dose of propery tax,a liberal amout of watercharges,remove a couple of Billion from next 3 years budget and there you have it things getting tougher for a few years to come.
Truth is things have not bottomed out just yet.Our  downward spiral continues!!

AND STILL THEY LEAVE!!

All the euphoria and happy happy slappy,snappy communications coming out of Leinster house last week was a little to late for loads of restless spirits who find it a little bit of a grind to keep pushing,pushing,pushing against the relentless pressure to try something different.
So the tide of Emigration has not turned and people continue to leave apace.
It was finally and euphorically displayed as a victory last week that the Irish taxpayer will  bear the full extent of the losses at Anglo Irish Bank and Nationwide Building Society,No write down will occur and all of private investors will be paid in full after they should have lost their shirts!!

GOING,GOING,GONE!

This is Jose Carlos Lorenzo it was a pleasure to sit and pause  a while with him before he set off on an adventure. I first met Jose about 2 years ago when I did some prints for a college project he was doing. Now he has graduated with a degree he has decided to change it all around again and he is off to the Caribean.

REGARDING THE SPIRIT OF THE TIME!!

Sitting across a table from Marie Carroll in Paddington, Brisbane it all seemed so different from the last time we met on the south wall walk, just beside the Half moon swimming club in Dublin.
Both of us had in more ways than one travelled a long distance since that moonlit night.
Life in Dublin became unviable for Marie after the financial crash. She worked in I.T. recruitment and that business just shrank and disappeared right in front of her eyes. So she had to travel to work

CATCH UP 2

Its been a while, so before I launch myself into a new phase of posting I have something to put right.
Due to some confusion re release forms I was unable to publish this shot as it happened.
It was made last march outside the central bank of Ireland (a few weeks after the dis-assembly of the occupy Dame street protest)

RELATIVITY!

Yes! the internet makes the world a smaller and much more accessible place that's the truth.
Sure it's that concept which breathed life into my own blog, The Lilliputian, a photographic blog for the small world.
It's only when I stepped outside my hall door in Dublin and put one foot after the other that the scale of the world re-established itself in my head.
I have been away for over 8 weeks now and I have visited so many fantastic people in so many cities.
It took 23 hours to shoot us across the world to the Immigration Museum in Melbourne. Once arrived there Jet Lag and the hard work of winding up publicity to the opening of the "Leaving Dublin" exhibition immediatly took its toll and wiped out the first 12 days of the journey. (But what a 12 days!!)
It was only a week and a half into the trip that I started to wake up as I prepared to travel off to visit some of my sitters who had settled in Australia and New Zealand.