Gerry Andrews: FIPF ARPS EFIAP
Gerry Andrews is an award-winning Dublin based photographer, whose passion for photography started when he was a nineteen-year-old working at the Limerick Leader Newspaper in Ireland.
In the early 1970s, he embarked on a project to capture the changing face of Ireland by making a photographic record of the characters that frequented the Milk Market in his native city, Limerick.
He gave up photography to concentrate on his business career in 1980 and subsequently built one of the largest and most respected lithographic printing companies in Ireland. He is a former Director of the Print & Packaging Forum and President of the Irish Printing Federation. He was initiated into the Printing Industry Hall of Fame for his contribution to the Irish Printing Industry in 2010
He returned to photography when he sold his business in 2006. In recent years his photographs of the Milk Market and Limerick in the 1970s have received national and international acclaim. His photographic exhibition, ‘Shaped by History’ attracted nearly 80,000 visitors when images from that work were exhibited at the Hunt Museum Limerick and at the National Photographic Archive Gallery in Dublin.
His accompanying book ‘Shaped by History’ was a sell out and awarded Book of the Year at the Irish Print Awards in 2012. His collection of photographs has been described by Dr Edward Walsh, Founding President, University of Limerick, as “a valuable national legacy” and has received substantial media coverage both at home and abroad.
In 2021, 50 years after he took his fist image, Andrews returned to the Limerick Milk Market to chart progress since the initial project in the early 70s. His combination of old and new images is a unique social documentary of a developing Ireland, capturing the nation’s transition from austerity to prosperity through the lens of one photographer; all captured in the same market. As part of that updated project, he recorded photographs of the market as it struggled to survive the economic challenges caused by a global pandemic.
In addition to social documentary photography, Andrews is particularly interested in environmental portraiture, photojournalism and travel. He has photographed extensively throughout Europe, South-East Asia, North & South America, Cuba and Africa. Some of his travel images were featured in a one-man photographic exhibition, ‘Faces & Places’, at the Hunt Museum Limerick in 2017.
His photographs have won numerous awards both at home and abroad and have been acquired by private collectors worldwide. A selection of his work is on permanent display at the Kemmy Business School, University of Limerick. He was awarded a Fellowship by the Irish Photographic Federation in 2012, an EFIAP from the Federation Internationale de L’Art Photographique in 2013 and an ARPS from the Royal Photographic Society in 2013. He has held six one-man, photographic exhibitions and his work has featured in a number of television and radio programmes. He has produced two books ‘Shaped by History’ and ‘Faces & Places’. He is a past President of the Dublin Camera Club and a member of the IPF Distinction Assessment Panel.
Andrews is a well-known judge of national and international photographic competitions and a sought-after lecturer at home and abroad. In January 2022 he became the first photographer from the Republic of Ireland to be invited to give a zoom presentation to members of the FIAP Academy (Federation Internationale De L’Art Photographque), in 40 countries across 4 continents.
In 2022 he was presented with the only Lifetime Achievement award ever awarded by Limerick Camera Club for exceptional and distinguished service to both Limerick and LCC. In 2022, the Irish Photographic Federation awarded him the Brendan Walkin Memorial Award for Outstanding Services to Irish photography.
His new book “From the Shadows of the Past” is an intimate study of the people who represent Ireland’s past and those who symbolise its vibrant future, captured by one photographer, in one market, 50 years apart.
I became interested in Photography in the early 70s while working with the Limerick Leader Newspaper.
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Hi Gerry, about time you shared these! Great shots. Love the one of the Garda especially. Best of luck. Kevin
Hi Gerry,
Took some time out over the weekend to flick through the Limerick & Ireland photo’s from the 70’s.
Some of the photos are amazing. All the better for been in black & white. Best of luck with the website.
Des
Hi Gerry,
Well done, a fascinating web site and marvellous photography. Wishing you every success and loads of excitement in the future.
Regards,
Johnny
Hi Gerry, I read the article in Limerick Leader and had to visit your site.
It absolutely fantastic and must have been wonderful to see all those places.I wish you the best of luck and continued success.
Kind regards Christy (Old Neighbour)
Gerry,
This is great …We hope to spend more time going back over the pictures again. Heading into Easons to buy the Limerick Leader.
Louis and Mary Rose
Hello Gerry,
A great selection of images kick-starting memories stored in the grey matter but nearly forgotten about. Stops you in your tracks. Wonderful. Inspired the following:
A lifetime, still,
Capturing stills of lifetimes
Silent, introverted glances snapped
In windows, framed unnoticed
Within, captured from without,
Across the plane of two existences
Pensive, inaudible clicks,
Capture
Translucent, the spectral form is boxed
In time the body too will follow
For now the sliver clipped
Is of no consequence but,
In time, all that remains
– Brian Blaney
(9/7/2011)
Hi Gerry,
I read the article in the leader the week end and was blown away. I am a photographer myself and find your images inspiring!
I have only a selection of the site viewed but am already a fan.
best of luck in the future and I look forward to enjoying more of your great images.
Hi Gerry, great to see you are back in action. Loved the photos from the milkmarket, brought back loads of memories of going there and looking at the baby chicks etc.. look forward to keeping up with your new adventures. best of luck.
Sylvia ( old neighbour from wolfe tone street)
hi gerry
i was a printer with the treaty press loved your old photos of the milk market am very interested in old limerick
Well done, Gerry. Remember you from Munchins College long ago. You had the spark then, glad to see you’ve kept the flame alive and burning brightly.
Hi Gerry, Some Fantastic photographs here, well done. Keep up the good work.
Have just found your site so only looked through a sample of your work. Really beautiful photos, left home in 1974. Brings back so many memories
Hi Gerry
Your photographs are works of art, a pleasure to view and moving. Being from Limerick I really loved your photographs from the 70’s and how you captured what was real poverty but real community back then. My granduncle had a stall in the market back then and it was really interesting to see what he would have seen while there.
Keep up the fantastic work!
Your work makes me want to know more about the people and their stories. So many wonderful faces! It brings the world closer to me. This is the kind of work I am striving for myself, you are an inspiration. I would so love to know more about your process. What equipment do you use, how do you process. How do you go about approaching the people you meet and photograph? I so greatly admire the honesty you achieve.
Terry Connelly
Hi Gerry congrats on a brilliant site.Your photographs do take me back not only to old limerick but all those evenings in the basement of o’connell st where the old Limerick Camera Club met and that is where I would have seen a lot of those old photographs.You did give me some at the time but god only knows whre they went.One I do remember was of Gaberial Hanigan along witgh three others in a lane way which may have been off catherine st,maybe you might include it in the future on your site.Unfortunately I dincontinued the photography but I do remember you teaching me the art of shading in the dark room of your job in limerick all the best in the future Eugene Geary
Gerry,
Congratulations on such a creative website. As with all you have touched in life this website and the selection of photos does not suprise me. The very best of luck with future endevours.
Walter
As a fellow Limerick man and as a professional within the photography business I understand your images of Ireland and of the Milk Market to be spellbinding.
The sense of being there is tangible in every image and the history of the Limerick we loved and love is more clearly evident than anything I have seen before.
My own Grandmother (Elizibeth Mc Namara nee Quilligan) was indeed a member of that precious community and you have rekindled all that is important to me with these images.
Respectfully
Cormac T. Leonard
Inspiring and brilliantly presented. Gerry you are a very modest and extraordinarly talented fellow hillwalker. Will enjoy visiting and revisiting this site.
Well done! I really enjoyed my visit to your website. Thank you.
Great site wonderful work.
The photos of Africa & South America were Wonderfull
Congratulations on such a wonderful web site your pictures are inspiring to amateur photographers like my self.
Your images are both stunning and evocative. The 1970’s pictures remind me of the Ireland I knew at that time. A stark reminder of the the tough times that showed on the faces of the people. I participated in the Ireland V Greece competition in the shot put so it was nice to see pictures of that venue. I discovered my passion for photography in 2007 and I recognize the outstanding quality and unique orientation of your work.
Thanks for coming along to Limerick Camera Club last night – it was fascinating to hear the stories behind the photographs and to see your stunning prints. It was a very enjoyable night. I’m looking forward to seeing the results of your adventure in Cuba!
Gerry,
Just a quick note to thank you so much for your presentation at our club tonight. It was great to see your work. Particularly your portrait work which I really admire.
I also enjoyed your work in relation to the Limerick Market.
My Dad was from Limerick and I have family there, so it was lovely to see.
Best of luck with your upcoming exhibition in the Hunt Museum.
Very much looking forward to seeing your exhibition in the Hunt. The evening at Limerick Camera Club was a revelation. So recent a time, so irrevocably gone, yet people and atmosphere are alive in these most beautiful portraits. I came away thinking that these are not just superb prints, and this is not just skilled craft — this is someone with a real instinct for photography!
Gerry,
Amazing work thank you for sharing your story, your loss and your come back. I love your BnW’s!
Mahalo (thank you),
Ina
Hi Gerry,
Beautiful shots, very creative yet heartfelt, I’m looking forward to seeing your BnW’s in the Hunt muesem this weekend of Limerick past. Best of luck..
I went to see your exhibition in The Hunt Museum today Gerry, wonderful work. What marvellous characters you captured from that era.
I’d love to see some images of Wolfe Tone Street if you have any. I still have great memories of the stamp collecting and the Airfix Models Gerry!
Good luck with your future projects.
Hi Gerry. Excellent exhibition. Truely brilliant viewing. Keep up the excellent work. I missed you today to say hello from all The O’ Shaughnessy’s ( you might know us better as Shann )
GREAT PICS AND WONDERFUL PORTRAITS.
Hi Gerry,
Thanks again for the course on photography for beginners today at The Hunt.
I know I am better enabled following your very ‘professional’ direction.
Your informative approach is a real eye opener.
Thank you.
As a professional photographer I constantly look out the odd image that inspires me to go further, to seek out even better shots. Mostly I find one every now and then.
Your entire collection is just amazing. You have the key ability – an eye for something really worth a great photograph, whether it is a dog sitting on a wall in Limerick, or a man standing beside a car in Cuba. I am in complete awe of your ability as a photographer.
Kind regards
Padraig
Hello Gerry
Just to say how much I enjoyed your talk at Celbridge camera club this evening on your photos of the 70’s in Limerick. Work of quality!
Thanks..Hans
Hi Gerry
It was good to meet you in the Lakes and I hope you got a few decent shots out of it. You have a great website and some fantastic imagery here, you kept that quiet.
The book is a great read by the way, I hope it does well.
Best regards
Steve