About 50 years ago, renowned photographer Joe O’Shaughnessy took up a camera and began a career that has won him plaudits far and wide – and he continues to capture the life and times of Galway every week in the pages of the Connacht Tribune.

At the same time, a group of students in University College Galway DramSoc were launching the Druid Theatre Company that, over the last half-a-century, has blazed a trail in Irish theatre.

An exhibition at the Galway International Arts Festival, ‘Joe O’Shaughnessy’s Druid’, ties the two together to showcase five decades of photography and theatre in what promises to be captivating visual archive of two Galway institutions.

Running at Kenny Gallery in Liosbán from Monday next, the exhibition is a selection of Joe’s extensive archive of Druid photographs – showcasing its early days as a fledgling theatre company and milestone moments in in the fifty years since.

“I was in Kenny’s Bookshop and Tom Kenny mentioned to me about Druid’s 50th Anniversary and mentioned doing an exhibition,” says Joe of how it came about.

“And who happened to come in the door, but Paul Fahy,” he says, referring to the Arts Festival’s Artistic Director. It was there and then that the idea for the exhibition was born.

In addition, several of Joe’s photographs will also appear at the ‘President Michael D. Higgins – Through the Lens’ exhibition at Galway City Library.

Over the past 50 years, Joe has built up an unrivalled archive of life in Galway – capturing everything from State visits to first days at school. And he’s become hugely well-known and regarded as a result, having been there at critical moments in so many people’s lives.

His fascination with photography started as a young child in Enniscorthy where he was born to parents originally from Newbridge and Ballygar in County Galway.

The family made their way back to Galway when Joe was four years old, to Lower Salthill where his passion for photography continued to grow.

“I remember going to the cinema and I was fascinated by how they were made. Eventually, I got an old movie camera second-hand in Dublin. I think I’d to bum the £15 for it,” he says.

Among the people he captured on that camera was his school friend, the late Maelíosa Stafford, who went on to gain fame as a Druid actor and also served as Druid Artistic Director.

It was there that a lifetime behind the camera began.

Caption: Druid stalwart, the late Ray McBride, during the filming of Reefer and the Model at Galway Docks in 1988 – one of the photos in Joe O’Shaughnessy’s Druid, which opens at the Kenny Gallery this Saturday and runs for the duration of the Galway International Arts Festival.

Read more on Joe’s story and see his photos in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now, or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie. You can also download our Connacht Tribune App from Apple’s App Store or get the Android Version from Google Play.