Former AP photographer’s vintage images of Ireland capture a world before it disappeared
BERLIN (AP) — Rare photographs of Ireland from 1963 show a world on the verge of extinction before it took its first steps towards modernity.
The black-and-white images, shot by Diether Endlicher, a young German photographer who later covered the Olympics and major global events for the Associated Press for four decades, are being shown at the Irish embassy in Berlin, where Endlicher, now 85, was honored last weekend for her role in documenting moments of Irish life from another era.
In the photographs, boatmen, fishermen, workers, shepherds taking their animals to the markets, women carrying milk on a donkey cart, a funeral procession, religious people praying for holy relics in stone-walled fields, ruined monasteries, impressive landscapes, children looking at a television through a shop window evoke a time before modern conveniences came and transformed them all.
The pictures lay unseen and forgotten in Endlicher’s attic; until recently, when he rediscovered them after deciding to delve into his archives. The now 62-year-old scanned the negatives and contacted the embassy to see if there was any interest. It was there.
Ireland’s Ambassador to Germany, Maeve Collins, praised the “beautiful detail” and historical significance of the photographs.
“They bring vivid expression to the lived experiences of people on the west coast of Ireland in the early 1960s,” he said.
Photos are a record of a journey
Endlicher was 22 years old when he and a friend traveled from Germany to the west coast of Ireland in a small two-door bubble Fiat 500 known as the “Bambino” that was not designed for road trips. He carried a Leica M2 and three lenses to places where few people had seen a camera before.
When they reached the west coast of Ireland, they found a man carrying grass to Inishmaan, one of the Aran Islands in Galway Bay, in a large sailing ship without an engine. They decided to go with him, and as they went, Endlicher posed for a photo.
“I thought we would never get there because the wind wasn’t very strong. The boat was going too slow,” Endlicher told the AP. “It was an interesting journey there and when we landed in Inishmaan it was a different world.”
He saw fishermen working and villagers threshing barley stalks by hitting them against stones. His clothes were home-woven from tweed. Electricity did not reach the island. Grass from the mainland was used for heating and cooking.
Many locals made it clear that they did not want their photos taken. The Aran Islands are still part of the Gaeltacht, the Irish-speaking region, and most people in Inishmaan did not speak English at the time.
“Inishmaan was a different world even from the mainland,” Endlicher said. “Europe was very different then, and so the difference between Ireland and Europe, the mainland European countries, wasn’t that big. Agriculture was pretty much the same. Farmers worked with horses. The only thing that was different in Ireland was the donkeys. There were lots of donkeys back then.”
Return to work for AP
Endlicher returned to Ireland in 1984 to cover US President Roland Reagan’s visit to the AP. He worked at the news agency from 1965 to 2007.
“I studied a total of 29 Olympics, including the Winter and Summer Olympics. I studied many Winter Olympics. As a Bavarian, I almost grew up on skis,” said Endlicher, who skis on the slopes before big races to find the best positions for taking photos.
Endlicher was at the 1972 Munich Olympics. 11 Israeli athletes and coaches killed He became the target of the Palestinian group Black September.
He traveled to Israel on news assignments in the 1980s and 1990s and served several assignments in Gaza; here he saw the first intifada, a Palestinian uprising against Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
He remembers Israeli soldiers forcing him to hand over his film after he took pictures of them beating a boy running with a Palestinian flag in Khan Younis in Gaza.
“I had no chance, I had to give them the movie,” he said.
Endlicher discussed the changes caused by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, as well as the uprisings in Georgia and Armenia.
“I remember there was an uprising in Moscow when the communists were trying to occupy the parliament, so after (former Russian President Boris) Yeltsin, there were a lot of shootings in Moscow,” he said. “I was undercover under a truck and there was a TV cameraman in the phone cell next to me, they shot into the phone cell and he got injured.”
Endlicher was also with American troops during the Gulf War in 1991 and in Prague, Czechoslovakia, for the Soviet invasion in 1968, and he relied on a taxi driver traveling to and from Vienna, Austria, to process and deliver his films.
“He must have had a deal with the border police or the Russian army,” he said.
The job presents dangers
Reminding the dangers he faced during his 42-year career at the AP, Endlicher had previously worked at the German news agency DPA. He said that he believed in the necessity of taking photographs and testifying.
“Some people have to be willing to take risks. Anja NiedringhausHe said of his former MEP colleague, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2014: “I think the thing is you have to be independent. If you’re married and you have children then it’s different. If you’re single and you have no obligations… It’s also hard to maintain friendships. I’ve also had times when my job was the most important thing to me. And I neglected part of my family life. It’s a conflict.”
Endlicher’s son, Matthias, accompanied him to the embassy’s memorial service on Saturday, and his wife, Andrea, joined them for dinner that evening at the ambassador’s home.
“I’m so happy they see the value of these paintings,” he said.
