'Brannockstown at Home 2020' charms

I have just been charmed and enthralled by a book produced as a 'lockdown project' by residents of Brannockstown, writes Brian Byrne.

Brannockstown at Home 2020 is a photobook showing some 120 local families in their homes and gardens through last summer, and the project has raised €2,000 for Pieta House.

The idea came about during a conversation between Agnes Keohane, Carol Scully, and Jo and Jim Byrne while they were out on their respective 'lockdown walks' around Gilltown during the spring. Agnes is a keen photographer, and during her walks she had taken pictures of some of the people she met, which had been circulated to their families and friends.

"It seems they had been well received, so then we got the idea of a photobook," she says. "Another amateur photographer, Alan Kennedy, came on board. Our aim was to capture this unique moment in time and to give the community a lift during lockdown."

The team arranged appointments with those who agreed to participate and spent the summer months taking the pictures. Then they designed the book and arranged printing, and the publication was completed in November.

The decision to give the proceeds to Pieta was because the annual Dawn Walk organised by Lorna Brophy and Richie Kelly for the charity had to be cancelled this year due to Covid. "The funds raised by this photobook enabled the Brannockstown community to continue their support for Pieta House. The net proceeds, after printing costs, have been donated on behalf of the participants."

Each page represents a family living in the village or the area. There are many who will be familiar to Diary readers. Many whom I know, others whose family names I know. Still more that I don't know at all, which reflects how Brannockstown has attracted new people over recent years, from many parts of the country.

A number of family names are the same, indicating how generations are living together in their home place, grandparents, parents and children, siblings and cousins.

One of the things the team were trying to achieve was 'to put names on faces of the people we met on walks'. They have succeeded in that. But they have also put faces on a community which, by all the commentaries each have put with their photographs, is one which anyone would be proud to live in.

Brannockstown 'at home' is somewhere very special indeed.

(Some copies of the book are still available at €20, contact Carol Scully on 087 2919684.)

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