Robert has been a professional photographer now for thirty years in his hometown of Athy, County Kildare where he was born and lived for most of his life. One of a family of seven brothers and two sisters, his mother Anne was from Graignamanagh, County Kilkenny and his dad, Peter, was from Kelliville, County Laois.
Robert and his wife Patricia have three children, all grown-up and independent now with their own careers. Their eldest son, Mark, is the owner of the Emigrant Bar in Athy, and the proud father of three beautiful daughters; Shane, like his dad, is an accomplished photographer based in Portlaoise and was awarded his Honours degree at Huddersfield University. The youngest is Tara, who has recently opened her own hairdressing salon in Athy.
Robert worked for all the local and national newspapers, which enabled him to build up a very large archive of life and times in and around Athy. He is passionate about his hometown and is always keen to promote its lovely landscape and history.
Robert’s hobby was and still is photography, and he feels very privileged to be working in a career he loves. Today Robert specialises in weddings, portraits and landscapes. He now works with digital equipment after working for twenty-seven of the past thirty years in a darkroom. He believes digital technology is ‘heaven sent’.
He is the author of Images of Ireland: Athy Town which was launched in October of 2005. It featured a small selection of 200 photographs from Robert’s very large archive, built up over thirty years. The book sold out in seven days after the launch so a reprint for the Christmas season was hastily ordered. In May 2006 it was reprinted for the third time.
It was while Robert was writing his first book over on Achill Island that he took a variety of landscape and seascape photographs. After the Athy book was launched, the publishers saw Robert’s Achill photos and so Achill Voices was born. The research, text and photographs were all provided by Robert with much help from his many new friends on the island.
Robert says that writing and researching this book was a real pleasure and to meet such a diversity of people, all with their unique story to tell, was an experience he will never forget. This book is the result of many months of research.
Today Robert is busy thinking up his next challenge.