‘This isn’t just photographs hanging on a wall’

Photographer Lorraine Teevan's 'Cavan 365' exhibition starts this weekend in the Townhall

- Róisín McManus -

Photographer Lorraine Teevan’s new exhibition documenting the last 20 years of her press photography and a collection of Cavan people is opening this weekend in the Townhall.

While the exhibition focuses on the lives of many Cavan people, one played a particularly important role in inspiring her work and love of people - her father, Jim McElgunn.

As a young girl, Lorraine spent her summers and many weekends travelling with her father, who delivered bread and milk around parts of counties Cavan and Leitrim.

He was a “very, very popular” man, and each day, they met “so many different characters” in shops, hotels and homes, who all “loved to see him coming”.

“I used to say to him that if he spent less time talking, he could have been home three hours earlier,” Lorraine jokes. “But those things really mattered to Daddy. Those people really, really mattered to Daddy. They weren’t just his customers, they were his lifelong friends.”

This precious time spent together was a “real education” for her in learning how to speak to people, and be part of their everyday lives.

Her father taught her a “very important lesson” - everybody “was worth listening to”.

Lorraine’s father sadly passed away in 2020. After his passing, she decided to look through a small wooden box that he had long kept in the window of his bedroom in their family home on Holborn Hill in Belturbet.

In this box she had previously never taken “much notice of”, she found newspaper clippings that “really mattered” to him, including various letters he had written to newspaper editors, and photographs Lorraine had taken.

“I realised they were really important to him and he was really proud of them,” Lorraine says.

To “honour” her late father, and thinking of all the people the pair had met over the years, the idea behind the exhibition was born.

“Daddy is behind all of this,” Lorraine explains.

“And I’m still going around meeting people like I’m on a breadrun, except I have a camera in my hand.”

GIFTS

Lorraine has been a photographer for as long as she can remember. As a child, her uncle Val - who lived in Wexford, visited the family in Belturbet with gifts for Lorraine and her two older siblings. Her three other siblings had already moved out of the house at that stage.

As the youngest, Lorraine was the last to choose a gift. Eyeing up a “very, very small” 110 camera she was sure her older sisters were going to claim, she couldn’t believe her luck when they opted elsewhere.

“From that, I started taking photographs of everything,” Lorraine remembers.

She later met photographer Kevin Clancy through her sister, who was a journalist. A “really out-there character”, he took her under his wing and brought her along on jobs.

A self-taught photographer, Lorraine’s first photography job came after she submitted photos to the Cavan Echo when it opened in 2004. The Anglo-Celt’s former editor Johnny O’Hanlon also asked her if she would like to start submitting her work to this publication. And, with her sister being a well-known journalist, she then “took a chance” and started submitting to national newspapers.

During the six weeks of the exhibition, Lorraine’s press photography will be hung on the walls, alongside a “constantly changing” digital exhibition, consisting of 365 people from Cavan.

In August, the Milltown-based photographer took photos for the exhibition of people from “all walks of life” over two days of “great craic” in the Townhall.

She also travelled around the county to take photos of people she “made sure” were included, such as well-known former referee Thomas Doonan in Bawnboy, who was diagnosed with MND in recent years, and “one of the main people” from her life on Holborn Hill, Ollie O’Reilly (Ollie the Cobbler).

The exhibition includes a photograph of her father, and other well-known people from Cavan, including the late musician Ted Sweeney from Killeshandra and the late Bridget Tierney, who passed away in her 109th year - and who Lorraine photographed each year on her birthday.

VERY IMPORTANT

One lady whose son had been living in Cavan, who sadly passed away earlier this year, came in for a portrait, with his friends, holding a picture of her son, Michael Coghlan-Rogers, who was also a photographer. It was “very important” to her that he be included because the people of Cavan were “so good to him.”

“To be trusted with something like that, and for her to want him to be part of it, I thought this really does mean something,” Lorraine reflects.

“This isn’t just photographs hanging on a wall, this means a lot to people.”

For Lorraine, the exhibition is a “great way” to honour those who have touched her life and ensure “their stories are not forgotten.” She hopes that everyone attending will either know somebody featured in it, or will get to know new faces.

“Photographs don’t stop time but remind us that the time we have, and the people we share it with, are everything,” Lorraine says.

“It makes me feel proud that I have been allowed into these people’s lives, and been able to create this legacy that will hopefully live on long after I’m gone, and long after all these people have gone as well.”

Lorraine is grateful for the support of Cavan County Council, Cavan Arts, her “patient” and “wonderful” husband Gearoid, her “lovely” children; Jobhi, Senán and Noelani, her mother Mary McElgunn, all her family, and to the people of Cavan for supporting her through her recent illness.

‘Framing Cavan: 20 Years Behind The Lens & Cavan 365’ opens on Saturday, November 7 at 3pm in the Townhall, and runs until Saturday, December 19. The exhibition is open from 10am-4pm Tuesday to Friday, 12pm-4pm on Saturdays, or by appointment.