Proposal for understanding the image  

Portals on the Historic Town of Maynooth

Seán Durack

For my project I propose to do a photographic history of Maynooth Town concentrating on its doorways and windows.  These portals offer the viewer a sense of the origin and development of the town.   Maynooth is a unique place in that was the centre of power in Ireland under the leadership of the Fitzgeralds (Garrett Mór and Gearoid Óg) who lived in the Geraldine Castle and ruled as Lord Deputies of Ireland in the 15^th and 16^th centuries.  It became a landlord planned town under the Duke of Leinster who lived at Carton and under whose influence it became a university town with the establishment of St. Patrick’s College in 1795 and the National University of Ireland Maynooth in 1997. The expansion of the college particularly from the 1840s includes Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin and J.J. McCarthy designed buildings. In the town itself there is the Charter School, there are labourers’ cottages as well as first and second class dwellings, a former convent and school hall, St. Mary’s Church of Ireland, shop entrances and coach entrances.  Images up to the current time will be included. Recent buildings in Maynooth include a Scott Tallon Walker Library in the University. The reason I picked this as a topic is because I am interested in local studies. In 2011 I completed an NUI certificate in local studies at Maynooth. My project was Maynooth a socio-economic profile 1901-1911.

The exhibition will be called Portals on the Historic Town of Maynooth. The exhibition be of aimed at people who are interested in local studies and not just those interested in Maynooth history but town history, it will interest those interested in architecture and the built environment, it will be on interest to International Students to Maynooth. It will also be an exhibition that could be disseminated online and be of interest to bodies such as Maynooth Community Council, Kildare County Council, and especially to Maynooth’s  twinned town, Canet-en-Rousillon in the south of France. The exhibition could be put on display in in the Geraldine Castle by the OPW. Carton House was host to the Irish Open this year and will be again next year and this project may be part of the Festival activities and will be organised around that event.  Information about the exhibition will be carried by the Maynooth Community Council Newsletter (free newspaper delivered to 5,000 households in Maynooth)  and webpage, Kildare.ie whats on page, and art related links such as Space and Place.

The focus on doors and windows presents a challenge and would be a new approach from what has been done in the past.  The last formal photographs of the town are in the Lawrence collection and concentrate on the Geraldine Castle, College Entrance, and Carton Demesne.    Seeing the history of Maynooth through its doors and windows at different times draws the viewer attention to details that might otherwise be overlooked and allows for the inclusion of atmospheric images.  We see doors and windows everyday but take little notice of them. The beauty of these portals is missed by most of the population.

The project has to be completed by April 2014.  The first month, November, will be taken up with research on the town’s history, visiting the relevant buildings and taking notes.   I will take many photographs of the same image at different times between December and February.  From this collection I will make a short list of images that best describes the history of the town from distant past to the present day.  

I will use the Maynooth Historic Towns Atlas edited by Arnold Horner as a source which will allow me to do an historical survey of the town.  From this I will be able to get the chronological order correct from the earliest doors and windows to the later ones – from the Geraldine Castle, to Carton Demesne, St. Patrick’s College, Leinster Cottages, Geraldine Hall and other dwellings in the town and the newer modern buildings.