National Monuments Service and OPW Photographic Exhibition at Dublin Castle in February 2023.
‘Monumental Ireland’ - new photo exhibition captures the beauty of Ireland’s ancient past.
The exhibition is curated by the National Monuments Service (NMS) in partnership with the Office of Public Works (OPW). Offering fresh new perspectives on Ireland’s ancient monuments, the exhibition highlights both the resilience of these monuments and their vulnerability. The exhibition provides in one space an accessible and breathtaking gaze at a range of monuments that tell the story of Ireland.
The photos are from the National Monuments Service Photographic Unit, originally set up in 1955. The unit has built upon its collection of photographs over the years and this archive is now approaching 550,000 images, mainly of national monuments and historic properties in State care.
The Photographic Unit’s main function is to record conservation works at national monuments and to maintain its collection of photographs of sites and monuments, recording their condition and conservation works. Selected images from this photographic archive will be on display to the public at Monumental Ireland, allowing members of the public to witness and appreciate the monuments and the work of the Photographic Unit in cataloguing this heritage.
The exhibition includes remarkable new imagery of the world-renowned Winter Solstice phenomenon at Newgrange passage tomb. As part of a two year research project between NMS and OPW, imagery captured from a high resolution camera in the burial chamber and controlled via an internet connection, has shown the dawn sun rays illuminating the chamber as never previously captured, enabling this phenomenon to be witnessed by everyone.
There are over 145,000 known archaeological monuments across Ireland, representing more than 12,000 years of human settlement. This archaeological heritage is central to a sense of place for communities across the country, evidence of continuity and change across our landscapes and towns. Offering places of retreat, for quiet reflection and education, they also prompt questioning of a past which has been at times conflicted in its complexity of ancient tribalism, conquest and independence.
Over the last 150 years, approximately a thousand of these monuments have come into the care of the State and are the responsibility of Ireland’s Office of Public Works and National Monuments Service.
This collection from the NMS Photographic Archive allows an appreciation of the work undertaken to conserve and maintain the monuments. The images demonstrate the value of using modern photographic techniques in preserving records of the past. Advanced photographic technology is increasingly being used to better understand and record these monuments and conservation work carried out on them. High Resolution Medium Format cameras are used to capture intense detail of monuments across the country, with infrared camera technology bringing this detail to life, including prehistoric rock art and ship graffiti. Drone technology is also now an integral part of the survey and monitoring regime, producing photogrammetric models for ongoing conservation research. These aerial views of iconic monuments within their landscapes brings to view these monuments in a way not previously appreciated.