AV News 174 - November 2008
Retired - but not Forgotten!
Lillian Webb AIPF
On 15th July, 2008, Alan
Lyons AIPF, his wife,
Philomena and myself set
off from a holiday in Kerry
to visit Sean O'Neill, 87
years old, in a nursing
home in Clonakilty - a good
three hour drive away.
Prior to the visit we had our
lunch in Rosscarbery,
where Patricia Ronan LIPF,
had made a prize winning
sequence, and we were
able to find some of the
images in it! We had a good two hours reminiscing. Meadhbh O'Leary had
by coincidence called the previous day.
Sean, from Bandon, Co. Cork, spent most of his working life in London as
a carpenter and built sets for various films. The only person he ever told us
he met was Sophia Loren! We came to know him when he retired to Bandon
and joined the Photographic Society of Ireland in Dublin and almost
immediately joined with the AV group in that Society. To the best of my
memory, I met him in Drogheda, when Peter Coles was over and staying with
me when he applied for his IPF distinctions and was successful.
Sean, never drove, so he used to travel up the day before and stay with
his late sister, Anna, in Dublin and one of us - Alan, Sean Mooney &
Meadhbh, Joe Webb, Mary O'Sullivan or myself would collect him and bring
him home afterwards. He attended as many workshops as he could with the
RPS (Ireland) AV group in Belfast and the NIPA Festival in February. Of
course, he also attended the IPF AV National Championships in Dublin,
Waterford, Shannon, Galway, Mullingar and Mallow. He was always very
generous and would have meals paid for before you would know it - including
when Ron Davies judged in Mallow!
We helped him with his AV's he made on Kew Gardens and the Notting Hill
Festival and he always said they were our AV's and we would say "Who
chose the music?", "Whose slides were they?" We just guided him in the use
of the equipment.
Following a few strokes, he has been in a nursing home for a number of
years now. I regularly sent him AV World when he was able to read about
those he knew and wrote after each AV nationals both North and South to tell
him a bit about each of the entries.
Yesterday, I had a phone call from Nancy Kirkpatrick, a 90 year old, from
Lisburn, whom I keep in touch with, and call on from time to time, and whose
eyesight has meant that she can no longer participate in AV events.
AV is a wonderful medium, I doubt that you would have that same
relationship with print or slide workers talking about individual prints as
opposed to sequences!
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