Sean Spellissy: Ennis in Old Photographs [2004] paperback

This wonderful collection of photographs is a chronicle of social life in Ennis from 1890s to the present. The main emphasis is on the period 1940 to 1980. The book recalls the town's commercial, sporting and artistic life with nostalgia and affection. Ennis had been the principal town in its region since medieval times, but by the time we enter the photographic era it was still feeling the effects of post-Famine decline. Many of the early photographs in this book show a time in which there was little wealth and little material opportunity. Its revival began with the development of Shannon Airport nearby in the 1930s, which led in turn to the development of tourism in County Clare, especially in the post-war years. Since the 1960s, Ennis has been a thriving county town, and in 1997 became the first Information Age Town in Ireland. Sean Spellissy has assembled a remarkably wide selection of images, all of them drawn from private sources and most of them never seen before in print.