About this photograph
Morning sun on a painted shopfront in Listowel, and a man who has walked this street a thousand times. The colours of an Irish market town, caught in a single stride.
Irish towns have always painted their shopfronts boldly. Yellow, ox-blood red, bottle green and navy are the colours of the country's main streets, a tradition from the days when a shop's front was its only advertisement. In Listowel the tradition has a famous name: Pat McAuliffe (1846–1921), a local plasterer who decorated the town's façades with moulded lettering, scrolls and emblems, including his best-known work, the Maid of Erin.
Here the morning sun does the rest. It lights up the yellow of number 14 and throws the walker's shadow onto the wall beside him, so that for a moment two figures pass the window instead of one. A picture like this lasts only as long as a few steps.
This is colour street photography from small-town Ireland: warm, bright and full of character. It suits a kitchen, a hallway or a study, anywhere that could use a bit of sun, and it brings the feel of an Irish main street to wherever it hangs.
