Corkonians curious about how their city looked 100 years ago can see how much the place has changed when a photographic exhibition of Leeside life officially opens at Cork Public Museum this evening.
The exhibition of some 37 photographs, taken by Cork businessman and Cork Camera Club co-founder Alec Day, his uncle John, and his grandfather Robert, span some 70 years from the 1860s to the 1930s.
Dan Breen, acting curator at Cork Public Museum, says the exhibition offers an insight into the life of Cork city particularly during 1890 to 1930 from which most of the photographs date.
"There are photographs of the Royal Horse Guards on the South Mall during the 1903 visit of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra but most of the photographs are simply street scenes - people crossing Patrick's Bridge or attending a regatta down the Lower Glanmire Road."
The photographs were part of the Day Collection of 1,500 glass negatives and 35mm prints donated to the Irish Architectural Archive in 1981 by Alec Day's widow, Raymonde. They were first exhibited at the IAA's building on Merrion Square in Dublin last June.
Day's niece, Amy Ramsden, and her husband, Chris, have many of the same photographs in the collection which they inherited and Chris is delighted that the people of Cork can see how their city looked 100 years ago.
The exhibition is being opened by photographer Billy Wigham at Cork Public Museum in Fitzgerald's Park this evening at 6pm and runs until Easter. For more details visit the IAA website on www.iarc.ie/news.
