It s over 20 years since I stood up to my knees in the sea off Furbo, Co Galway and stared at the tiny silvery fish weaving their way over the sandy bottom. The water was so clear that day it looked like it wasn t even there. The small shoal of fish swam around my legs and the summer sun cast their shadows on the dusky sea floor.
Dusk in the narrow streets of Dingle. A fine drizzle is falling from the dark sky and the damp is crawling into clothes and buildings. The sweet smell of turf fires is hanging in the air and gulls are crying in the distance. This was some 30 years ago and is one of my earliest memories of Ireland. In this moment I felt like I had come home.
However, it took another decade until I settled in Ireland for good and started my career as a photographer and writer. Ireland: Discover Its Beauty is my eighth book with OâBrien Press. Together we did books on Irelandâs Coast, Irelandâs Wild Atlantic Way, Irelandâs Ancient East and the River Shannon but we never thought about doing the most obvious, a book about Ireland. And this was exactly the question publisher Michael OâBrien asked me during one of our conversations: âWhy did we never do a book about Ireland?â At that moment it was as good as settled.