November 2007
"I am of Ireland"
Photographs by James U. Cryan
This show courtesy of Boston College Burns Library
"The Cryan Gallery Collection"
Reception - Saturday, November 10, 2007
2-4 p.m.
Music and refreshments

Boston College Burns Library James Cryan Gallery Collection Ireland 1970-2004

James Cryan has made seven photographic pilgrimages to Ireland over the past 35 years and has gleaned an extensive sampling of images of the people, the land, its antiquities and monuments. Last year James chose from the many thousands of images about sixty of his favorite pictures for a special exhibit at the Bums Library at Boston College. With the permission of the Burns Library this exhibit has become a traveling exhibit. The Chelmsford Library is happy to host the exhibit for November 2007.

James brings to his photography of Ireland a lifelong love of the Irish and their homeland.
As the grandson of Irish grandparents he heard, from his earliest days, stories of the land
they left as young people. He remembers being very aware of their longing for the
land of their birth and for the people they would never see again.

As a college student he abandoned his English major in his senior year to immerse
himself in Irish literature and history at Merrimack College in North Andover, MA.
He was drafted immediately after graduation and found himself chosen for training in
Infrared aerial recon and combat surveillance. In Vietnam he purchased his first cameras
and began to record the war from his perspective. When released from the army
he made his first trip to Ireland and was very happy to be able to meet his grandfather’s
brother who was still living there at ninety-one years of age.

Upon returning to this country James began graduate work at the University of
Massachusetts. While in his masters program he was employed as college photographer
for Amherst College, and he made his second trip to Ireland. Many of the photographs in
this exhibit are from that trip..

James continued doing postgraduate studies once he had finished his Masters program. He studied Irish traditions, ancient language (old Irish) and Irish literature and history. He also photographed many Irish writers and publishers.
In 1995, James, and his wife Elizabeth, attended the World Congress of Photography in
Dublin, Ireland. During the trips in the nineties the film and camera formats had become
larger and the films continued to improve, but the age of digital was quickly dawning.
In 2004, James went digital and made his first digital exposure in Ireland of the very
farm house his grandfather had left over one hundred years before.

James can be reached at 603-930-0914 and through email at jamescryan@mac.com
You may visit his website at www.jimcryan.com

Also exhibiting this month will be Constance Lanseigne-Case; her pictures will be in the open gallery.