THE multi-layered history of this country has so marked the landscape that it is possible to trace much of Ireland's complex story through pictures alone from passage graves, monastic settlements, high crosses, castles and on to the grandeur of Gandon's Georgian legacy. Jacqueline O'Brien has photographed them all.
There is a density and texture about her shots of even the simplest site on a remote hillside a sweeping aerial view of the Ceide Fields taken from a helicopter as the heavy morning mists finally cleared Skellig Michael, again from the air, stark and austere, testifying to the isolation of the ascetic monastic life once lived there. Croagh Patrick, path of pilgrimage, appears at its most daunting. The familiar sight of the Poulnabrone dolmen on the Burren, in north Co Clare, photographed against a dark, vaguely menacing sky.
Equally arresting in its simplicity is the toad stool-like dolmen with its massive capstone at Proleek, Co Louth Boa Man, an enigmatically singular Janus-figure, residing knowingly on a lake island in Fermanagh. The central chamber of Newgrange caught while illuminated by winter light. On the facing page in her latest book is a superb detail of the corbelled ceiling of the burial chamber. The Rock of Cashel is at its most uncluttered, unshrouded by scaffolding and is shown in daylight as well as in its more mysterious night setting.
"I didn't want to go for a whole lot of mood shots," says Jacqueline O'Brien, "I wanted the pictures to be contextual so that a person in Australia looking at them would get some idea of the surrounding location, of the physical context of the place or monument photographed." Still, despite her practicality, she is aware of the mythic romance surrounding sites she has visited, places such as Doon Fort and Doe Castle both in Co Donegal and both photographed by her from a small plan". "Doon and Doe gave me an immediate sense of Gaelic Ireland, of all those lives lived out so many centuries ago in these places which give you such a powerful sense of the past.
All early Irish history up until the end of the Middle Ages unfolds in her new book, Ancient Ireland, for which she has travelled the country, photographing burial grounds, monuments, forts, castles, and settlement sites. An emerging civilisation is painstakingly plotted through the chapters of a complex, turbulent history fought out over land ownership. Ireland's earliest people are approached through the sophisticated monuments they erected honouring their dead; the military strength, of later, once mighty chieftains is evoked in the massive forts. Ireland's earliest sculpture, majestic high crosses decorated with biblical iconography testify to the spread of religion as well as remarkable standards of craftsmanship. Round towers continue to reach towards the clouds. Great castles testify to a way of life once lived. O'Brien, has supplied the images - from the magnificent Turoe Stone, in Co Galway to Portumna Castle, also in Co Galway, built in 1620, which illustrates the transition from medieval tower house to Palladian mansion - for archaeologist Peter Harbison's authoritive, scholarly, and characteristically accessible text.
Sharp, sudden blasts of sunshine, broken by flash showers, hailstones, glowering clouds and apocalyptic threats or worse when - here comes the sun again blazing down over the Golden Vale. It is a typical Irish July morning, rendered no less beautiful by the playful climatic conditions. The Rock of Cashel though now heavily embraced by scaffolding remains its majestic self, indifferent to the whims of summer weather.
Five or six miles beyond it, lies the tiny village of Rosegreen, home at various times to many of the most immortal characters to grace the distinguished history of Irish racing. Talented horses from all over Ireland, Britain and North America came to Ballydoyle to be shaped into champions, many into sporting legends, by one of international racing's most inspired trainers, Jacqueline's husband, Vincent O'Brien. Sir Ivor, the mercurial and aptly named Nijinsky, Roberto, The Minstrel, Alleged, Golden Fleece, Sadler's Wells, El Gran Senor all came here.
Architectural and landscape photographer O'Brien is well accustomed to visitors being mesmerised by the equine roll of honour. "Vincent is one of the world's great trainers, he was always very good with his horses," she says with pride. Thoroughbreds with their unique combination of courage, power, elegance and vulnerability exert an emotive response. And O'Brien's charges were special, incomparable. The O'Brien house and grounds are dominated by the presence of these beautiful ghosts racing heroes retired to stud assured of immortality. Although she photographed most of O'Brien's finest champions, she gives no hint of being connected with horses.
Even since coming to Ireland, she has never been particularly involved with them. As a girl I hardly ever rode, and didn't take it up here either. I've never hunted. She was born in Perth and grew up on a sheep station in Western Australia. "It was a quarter of a million acres. We had Merino sheep. The worse the land, the better quality the wool. We had to drive 30 miles from the front gate to the house. Until I went to boarding school in Perth at 12, to the Loreto nuns, my brother and I did our schooling through correspondence courses."
ALTHOUGH she has lived in Co Tipperary since 1951 when she married Vincent O'Brien, Jacqueline is unmistakably Australian in demeanour as well as accent. Her father's great-grandfather, the Rev John B. Wittenoom, left England in 1829. "He was the chaplain who founded the Western Australian colony. They were settlers," she emphasises, "not convicts." The settlers went to Western Australia. The Rev Wittenoom was an Oxford don and when his wife died suddenly, he decided to head off to Australia. Apparently he was broken-hearted. So having applied for the job of chaplain, he took his five sons with him and went off. The voyage took five months. "Once he arrived there, he began educating the colonial young and built the first church and school. One of his sons was an artist and painted the first pictures of Perth."
A small, dynamic, happy woman with a strong humorous face and a jaunty walk, O'Brien is a naturally curious, interested individual. Her conversation is lively and multi-directional. She loves collecting information. "Once I find out about something, I want to know everything about it. I don't want hearsay, I want the correct facts" and she laments the ease in which various, conflicting, distorted versions of the same story develop to eventually be accepted as fact while being utterly inaccurate. "The only way around this is to check the facts, do your own research."
At the University of Western Australia, she took a degree in economics. It seems an odd choice considering her obvious interest in history. "But I liked economics, I enjoyed studying it," she says, appearing surprised to discover not everyone finds the study of economics exciting.
Following her first book, Vincent O'Brien's Great Horses (1984) on which she collaborated with lvor Herbert, Jacqueline was invited by the publishers to write a travel book about Ireland. "At first I thought it was a great idea and then I began discovering how little I knew. I was appalled by my ignorance of Ireland, when I began thinking about it the only roads I knew were the ones that lead to racecourses." She is aware that the people who live in a place are often less likely to know its history. "The natives are the ones who don't go out looking. Even Vincent, who loves Ireland, actually knew very little about the history and archaeology." Outsiders often prove better witnesses to a country's past, as Tim Robinson has demonstrated with his authoritative and imaginative investigations of the landscape, history, anthropology and folklore of Connemara. "Vincent learnt a lot from the books he's enjoyed seeing them being put together. He joined me on many photographic trips. But he is not the ideal assistant. He's an impatient person and doesn't see the point in standing around beside a monument for three hours waiting for the right light. His patience with horses is legendary but I can tell you, he's got none for photography.
Early into the conversation Vincent O'Brien wanders into the room. Small, compact, slightly impish-looking, he seems a gentle, and deceptively otherworldly individual considering his famously shrewd judgment. He knows what the interview is about and says of his wife, "she's an interesting subject. I'll leave you to it." He disappears. But Goldie the beautiful Labrador stays, settling on my foot.
Great Irish Houses and Castles (1992) and Dublin: A Grand Tour (1994) presented O'Brien's photographs with texts which she co-wrote with Desmond Guinness. They are large, coffee-table books, beautiful and elegant as is the concluding volume. O'Brien did her own research and is very pleased with the extensively detailed index of architects, artists and craftsmen she complied and wrote for Dublin 4 Grand Tour. Of that book she says, "it was much needed. It is a good book, especially as Desmond had worked so hard to preserve all the buildings of Georgian Dublin." The Dublin book is important and is now being re-issued.
Ancient Ireland however is the most ambitious of the trio the one I always wanted to do. It traces the history of Ireland from the Stone Age and through the centuries up until the decline of Gaelic Ireland in the 17th century. The approach is both chronological and thematic. About two years ago she approached Peter Harbison, whose work includes the majesterial three volume study, The High Crosses of Ireland as well as Pilgrimage in Ireland. The trilogy is now complete and Ancient Ireland with its wide appeal should be a bestseller. For all its glamour, this is a serious, important general history book.
Far from being motivated by the lure of an elaborate project, her handsome trilogy is the result of "simply wanting to tell people about Ireland, about the wealth of things and places that are here." Not only did her husband encourage her, he also financed each of the three books. "His support meant that they could be sold for £39 instead of £45. Big colour books such as this are so expensive to produce they prove out of the range of the ordinary reader. Just look at the bigger illustrated quality art books in any book store and many of them are over £60. Novels are now priced at £16. It is very costly to print high-quality colour photographs. So this type of book needs to be subsidised or sponsored." The trilogy is a labour of love. While she cringes at the cliche, she agrees it is apt. "It would have been impossible to do this without Vincent's support. That's a fact. I will make no money out of this book, I didn't make anything out of the other two. But I didn't do them to make money."
"I came to the subject rather late I suppose," says O'Brien. "But when I first lived here, I didn't have the time. The first four children were born very close together. It was fairly busy. We were building up an international stables." Horses automatically equal money in many people's minds. O'Brien is amused. She certainly did not walk into an empire. "It was all beginning to get going when I arrived but it was not anything like what you see now. I've always been here. I love gardening, classical music and photography. I've never been overly social and good heavens, have never been part of the cocktail circuit. I don't even drink."
Looking after the children, the gardens, household and the business engaged, her fully. After 10 years, another baby arrived. And then of course all the while the horses were here. She began taking photographs soon after she married. Horses are so beautiful to photograph. But it was only as recently as the earl 1990s that she decided to apply herself to the more technical aspects of photography.
ON completing the three-year diploma at the College of Technology, Diploma in professional photographer Kevin Street in 1990, she came first in her class and was awarded the Wiltishire medal for the best all-round student. I think I was the oldest person to ever do it. I must have had about 12 grandchildren at the time. I now almost have 15." Not only are horses beautiful, they are animated and have natural movement. Architectural photography demands a formal technique. It is a different world.
While there are many framed photographs of horses on the walls of the long, narrow O'Brien house - a structure which kept extending backwards with the years - none of her pictures is on display. "No, no, no. I couldn't bear that. I tend to do a thing and then finish it and move on to the next. I couldn't find you a picture." Her work is on transparencies, filed in a large cabinet in her dark room. Leaning against the wall is her battered tripod. "I've carried this thing all over the place. It weighs a ton. I like it, it looks like it's been around some." It has.
Elsewhere in her study, a bright sunny room overlooking the gardens, are her history and archaeology books, as well as several volumes on Captain Cook. On the far wall is a remarkable photograph taken in the desert. Sand-dunes undulating with a sculpted smoothness. "Yes," she says thoughtfully, "it was taken in Dubai, in the part of the desert called Empty Quarter." A few moments pass before it is clear that she took the photograph. "It's the only one of mine around." An elegant cloakroom houses yet another gallery of amazing horses. All the memories, all the drama. The triumphs and the tears. Along the wall of the comfortable dining room are period-style paintings of the horses.
Debate continues about relocating monuments, such as high crosses and decorated stones, from their original sites to new sheltered positions such as the Cross of the Scriptures at Clonmacnoise which now stands inside the interpretative centre. "I was pleased that I photographed that one while it was still outside. It was like having those pictures of Cashel before the scaffolding went up. It's a shame, but I can see the urgent need to move monuments indoors. Even in ten years I've seen the rate of disintegration. Carvings are not as sharp. The acid rain is having a terrible effect. Erosion and decay have just speeded up. We have destroyed the atmosphere and now we are paying.
Hers is a magpie mind, leaping from subject to subject. Now she is completing an Open University course. "Harold Wilson said his greatest achievement was establishing the Open University. It's a wonderful institution, I want everyone to do a course. I couldn't understand why I saw a statue of Daniel O'Connell in the City Hall in Dublin, and the figure was wearing a Roman toga. Why was this? It led me on to the European Enlightenment. Currently writing an essay in which she is hoping to prove that Captain Cook, was an Enlightenment figure, she energetically announces, "I absolutely believe he was, don't you.
