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NEW - PHOTOS FROM RECEPTION FOR ALEN MACWEENEY
The reception for artist Alen MacWeeney was held September 13, 2007, bringing NEC students, faculty, staff and local residents to the NEC Gallery.  MacWeeney's photographs from the new NEC Press book, "Irish Travellers: Tinkers No More" were on display through September 28, 2007.

 
L-R: The crowd at the reception; Alen MacWeeney and Professor of Art Farid Haddad)

(L-R: Alen MacWeeney with NEC Press's Bob Ginna; Provost Ed Cooper, Alen MacWeeney, Bob Ginna, and Gallery director Darryl Furtkamp)

 
Excerpt from Irish Travellers, Tinkers No More:
Some families – in defiance of orders and offers of houses – still stay on the road and keep intact something of the nomadic spirit, which refuses to be subdued. Mostly illiterate, though with a spoken language of their own, they retain the company of extraordinary memories of songs, stories, and superstitions and an unquenchable desire to be themselves and none other. However, for most, life on the road is now gone.

I was sad to leave this work which was so pleasurable and return to New York to reclaim a career I had abandoned there. In 1997, after more than thirty-five years, I returned to Ireland to make a film about what had become of the Travellers I had photographed.

 

Some had died, some had gone away; others picked up with me as though I’d only gone down to the corner for a pint of milk. Most are now settled in houses or living on sites like walled-in reservations on the city’s fringes. They still survive in part on our castoffs; our refuse is recycled, used by them, or resold to us. They chose once to float while we were anchored; but now, confined in close harbor, they are moored without much option.

Their friendship was more significant to me than any other friendships I had known. They took me in, woke me up, and allowed me to enjoy my first adult experience of discovering a life outside the confines of my own upbringing. Out of the apparent bleakness of their lives, they revealed things to me that continue to be of significant importance in my life. That I, too, was in some way important to their lives, and shared a common purpose of carrying something of them to the outside world, warmed me.

I loved the tea, my friends, and I miss that life.

- Alen MacWeeney, New York, 2006

The New England College Press's first book, Irish Travellers, Tinkers No More, by the noted photographer Alen MacWeeney was published in June 2007.  According to Robert Emmett Ginna, Jr., Founding Editor of the NEC Press, “This publication is very much in keeping with the mission of the press to offer books of merit and distinction. We are delighted to have the opportunity to work with the esteemed photographer Alen MacWeeney and to publish a book that represents the highest standards in written and visual communication.”

MacWeeney, the author of seven previous photographic books, was born in Dublin and came to the United States to become assistant to the eminent photographer Richard Avedon. MacWeeney went on to earn distinction for his own photographs, which have been published in many journals, including The New Yorker, Life, Esquire, and the New York Times Magazine. Photographs by MacWeeney are in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, and The Art Institute of Chicago.

Some years ago, Alen MacWeeney became interested in the indigenous Irish  people, some 25,000 in number, long known as tinkers, but who call themselves Travellers—as the Irish government now designates them—after their preferred itinerant lifestyle. Fiercely independent and clannish, devoted to their semi-nomadic ways, Travellers do not usually welcome outsiders into their company. But with his unobtrusive, sympathetic manner, MacWeeney won their trust, formed friendships among the Travellers, and began to photograph individuals and families over a period of time, producing a remarkable record in arresting images of a slowly vanishing way of life. Irish Travellers, Tinkers No More is the result of his artistry. MacWeeney has captured the hardship of their lives, the indomitable spirit that sustains them, and the traditions they cherish. He also recorded Travellers’ stories and songs, which are transcribed in the book and, with music by renowned Traveller musicians, can be heard on the CD included with it. The photographs, stories, songs, music, and MacWeeney’s sensitive essay about his experience among the Travellers, constitute an invaluable contribution to folklore.

The scholar Bairbre Ní Fhloinn of the Department of Irish Folklore at University College Dublin has written an introduction to the book, transcribed Travellers’ stories and songs, and written extensive notes on sources, both for the texts in the book and for the songs and music on the CD.

For more information on the release of Alen MacWeeney’s book Irish Travelers, Tinkers No More or the New England College Press, please contact Robert Emmett Ginna, Jr. at rginna@nec.edu.