The photographic archive of former Lord Mayor Anthony Barry (b1901-d1983), the father of Peter Barry T.D., is a unique collection of photographs taken in person and with great skill by Barry, comprising mainly street scenes of Cork City from the mid 1960s to the early 1970s. Anthony Barry is remembered as the owner of a small grocery business in Bridge Street and Princes Street, Cork, that would later specialise in teas. Under Barry’s son Peter, the business would grow into the major household name we know today as Barry’s Tea. Under the government of W.T.Cosgrave, Anthony worked as election agent and would later be elected TD for Cork Borough at the 1954 and 1961 general elections. Barry served then as Lord Mayor of Cork from 1961 to 1962. It is from this time that he began producing an extensive archive of photographs of the people, streets, docks and river of his native city.
Anthony Barry's archive was kindly donated to the Archives by the Barry family in 2016. The archive comprises 109 photographic albums containing mainly monochrome prints, with up to 50-100 photos in each, plus 884 loose monochrome photographic prints, plus 200 color slides, in total comprising over 6,000 images. Thanks to funding from the Cork City Creative Ireland team, these images have been digitised and repackaged by Archives staff to international archival standards, in order that they may be preserved, and made accessible online. Almost 1000 of the images are available online to date.
View: Anthony Barry Photo. Archive Web Album (corkarchives.ie)
View: Anthony Barry Photo. Archive Web Album (corkarchives.ie)
The photos are also searchable on our online catalogue.
