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How often do you dig out and leaf through your family photo albums? All too often in this digital day and age, memories once made manifest through the analogue camera lens have been lost or forgotten, pushed aside to gather dust and supplanted by more immediate, online methods of photo taking and sharing. It’s through the Photo Album of Ireland project that the Gallery of Photography Ireland hopes to encourage the excavation of albums and personal collections of photos for public display. The aim of the project is ambitious, hoping to paint a fuller picture of Ireland’s history and offer richer insights into life in both the public and private realms.

In what is a reconciliation of analogue and digital traditions, demonstrating how the two means can coexist, the initiative invites people to share their personal photographs where they are then digitised and added into an ever-expanding online archive. Launched in 2013, the web-based archive is already swollen with photographs, each presented with striking clarity and in high-resolution. Over 3,000 submissions have been scanned to date. The collection appears less daunting thanks to the option of alphabetical browsing by surname of the contributor, cross-referenced by geographical origin. In addition to this online element of the project, a large selection of photos is currently being exhibited in the Gallery of Photography before touring a number of locations around the country. Across both floors of the gallery prints of varying dimensions are mounted in an almost chaotic, scrapbook-like manner, perhaps referencing the way family photo albums themselves are often so crudely assembled and cluttered in an effort to make every photo fit. Indeed, it is possible to miss out on some more noteworthy examples amongst this bombardment. For this reason, more than one visit is certainly warranted.

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Throughout the exhibition, a dialogue is formed and a connection forged between the present and the past, the public and the private. As the viewer peers in and as the subjects gaze outwards, the void between these spheres is temporarily bridged. This exhibition, then, serves to intimately link very different worlds and contexts. At times, one is made feel welcome, at others like an intruder, posthumously sharing in deeply personal moments that are not our own. In this regard, it is tempting for the viewer to flex their imagination and — rightly or wrongly — weave their own narrative around what it is they are looking at. While the project at large seeks to fill in some of the gaps in personal histories and biographies, only so much can be gleaned from portraits and candid shots from within the household.

Indeed, the selection currently on exhibition is mostly just that. School, family and wedding portraits feature heavily, alongside placid scenes from day-to-day life. Arguably, it is one-dimensional in this respect. As genuinely charming and escapist as these photographs might be, they are only insightful and revealing to a point. They do not leave an impression as lasting as some of the harder content, much of which must remain online due to spatial constraints in light of the growth of the collection. One particular exception, however, are photographs taken in the H-Blocks of the Maze Prison in County Down by Laurence McKeown, an inmate on account of his IRA activism. McKeown smuggled a camera in and smuggled film out of the complex in order to have it developed. His photographs offer a glimpse into the lives of Irish republicans behind the barbed wire-capped walls of the prison.

The Photo Album of Ireland as a project ought to be commended for its stated objective — it holds great potential as an opportunity to fill in so many blanks within Irish history. This can only be achieved through public support and a diverse range of submissions. Every story ought to be told in full, and each photograph will contribute to a comprehensive telling of Ireland’s story. Certainly visit the exhibition during its tour, but also root out and dust off personal photo albums and consider entering some of the contents into the archive.

The Photo Album of Ireland runs at the Gallery of Photography Ireland, Meeting House Square, Temple Bar until 31 August 2014.

Visit www.photoalbumofireland.com for touring information and submission details.

Correction(s):
A previous version of this article incorrectly described Laurence McKeown’s hidden camera photographs as being absent from the gallery. In fact, McKeown’s photos are included on the main wall of the gallery’s exhibition.