Go Kids

Small Lives:Photographs can explain to children in a second what no amount of words can.

Try telling stories about the bad old days when children in the country went to school with no shoes or how they joined the workforce before they hit their teens.

Even trying to describe the fun that could be had from a game of hop scotch on the street can be a challenge.

A fantastic new exhibition, Small Lives – Photographs of Irish Childhood 1880-1970, is made up of 50 photographs from the archives of the National Library, showing children down through the decades, at school, work and play.

The only thing that’s a bit off about the exhibition is the name – these children don’t seem to be having “small lives” at all. Any child will be intrigued by the clothes alone – scratchy wools, formal collars and short pants being much in evidence in the evocative black and white pictures.

The exhibition is in the National Photographic Archive in Meeting House Square in Dublin’s Temple Bar. It’s free and it will be on until next June, so it would make for a great school outing.

Older children who can’t make it to Dublin should be encouraged to look at the extraordinary and easy- to-access National Library photographic archive at catalogue.nli.ie – there’s enough material there for a year of school projects.

Small Lives – Photographs of Irish Childhood 1880-1970,National Photographic Archive, Meeting House Square, Temple Bar, Dublin