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An interesting scene!

Your observation is an interesting one. The well dressed adults (overcoats, shoes and hats) on a cold damp looking day, is a harsh contrast to the young barefoot child with just a jumper and shorts. When browsing through Mount Saint Lawrence’s Cemetery burial records, it’s therefore not surprising to see a high ratio of children dying young at that time. Many tough kids had to survive Frank McCourt’s Limerick.

That poor man will never be able to pull that contraption all the way to Ardnacrusha! A factor in it's positioning is that most of the houses in Georgian Limerick had coal cellars that went out under the streets and might not have borne the weight of the Steam Shovel. You will note that it is in the centre of the roadway where it was strongest.

KölnMike Well, it just struck me that here we have a behemoth of modern technology, imported from Germany, lumbering off to what was one of the largest engineering projects in the world at that time - and a boy barefoot on the street watching it pass by. While I'm always wary of making assumptions about lack of shoes, in this case, he really does look poor juxtaposed with some of the men...

KolnMike - I wonder how many Limerick people would consider any aspect of their city to be Frank McCourts? I know what you mean though, the hardships, the conditions and the poverty.

Thank you for the high-resolution scans of all your pix; it makes viewing a real pleasure and education.

Very nice Classic Photo. Now there looks like a very well built & very strong Building - - -

[http://www.flickr.com/photos/66105333@N06] It's Custom House Quay - sorry, I should have been more specific. Meagher's Quay is different, isn't it? p.s. have you seen our photo of Walter Bishop's wife, Bridget?

plaisanter~ No problem. I'm using them whenever I can... Glad you're enjoying the photos! :)

Great example of how vernacular photographs become art.