Desmond FitzGerald Photographs / UCD School of History and Archives. CC BY-NC-SA
Men and women towing coats, bags, packages and suitcases take a few seconds to pose for a photographer of the Press Photographic Agency in a railway station. Their faces exude no big emotions – some are reluctantly smiling, others gazing expectantly or looking slightly worried. A tall man in the foreground wears a cap identifying him as a member of the Salvation Army. Most probably, these people are refugees, just having arrived at their destination. The exact story behind this image is not documented, yet some context can be derived from its provenance. The photo’s former owner, Desmond FitzGerald, was born of Irish emigrant parents in London, 1888. An ardent admirer of Ireland, FitzGerald moved there with his wife Mabel in 1913 and became an ardent Irish nationalist. He served several ministerial posts in the 1920s and 1930s, became a senator and a member of parliament. The portrait shown here belongs to his fine collection of photographic prints, currently deposited at the University College Dublin School of History and Archives.
