Popular Inisbofin in spotlight as Caroline exhibits at Clifden Arts Festival

Caroline, who is better-known as the co-owner of Inishbofin's popular Galley Restaurant, is thrilled to have her work included in the festival programme, especially as it's only in recent years that she began to share her photographs publicly.

Born and reared in Dublin to parents from Louisburgh, she moved back to Mayo with her parents just before entering her final year in secondary school. After doing her Leaving Cert locally, she studied hospitality at the RTC, now the ATU.

Caroline had always wanted to run a food and hospitality business and, working with her husband Dermot Concannon who is from Inishturk, but with roots in Inishbofin, she's made that dream a reality.

When they got engaged, Dermot’s father, John, gifted them an old house on Bofin, “as an early wedding present”. John had lived there with his wife Delia, before they moved to Inishturk. After that, the cottage had lain empty and it was derelict. But Caroline and Dermot put their shoulders to the wheel.

“We gathered the money and applied for planning and built this room at the front as the coffee shop, and two bedrooms. Then, as we got the money, we built on,” she explains.

That was 28 years ago. Today, the Galley is a thriving business on the popular tourist island, with their teenage son, Dylan, also involved.

Indirectly, the Galley also helped Caroline to progress her passion for photography

“We sold little gifts in the coffee shop, really as an attraction to bring in people,” she says of visitors to Bofin.

People came in to see the crafts, and when they saw the excellent food, they generally returned to eat there.

Caroline, who had amassed a host of photos of old houses, boats, stone walls and other reminders of bygone days, started making cards for the giftshop, using those images.

They flew out the door and visitors asked her if she would do larger prints. She was amazed initially at the requests, but she did. And since she started putting them for sale, they've proven hugely popular.

“I love taking pictures and my phone is always full,” she says with a laugh of her obsession with photographing Bofin.

While the island's coastline, sea and constantly changing light inspire Caroline, it’s often the quieter, more forgotten places that really intrigue her.

“I’m drawn to the old houses, and their doors and windows, because they all had life inside them once. You look at them and wonder about the people who lived in them, the families, the stories and the lives that once filled those spaces.”

Caroline is kept busy in the Galley from April every year, but when autumn comes and tourism quietens down, she discards her apron, picks up her camera and wanders the island.

That's when she gets a completely different perspective of life there, as she seeks the stories hidden in its landscape.

“It could be the movement of the sea; an old, weathered doorway; an abandoned house or a boat by the shore,” she reflects.

Her photos capture moments in time, offering insights into Bofin's history and glimpses of generations who lived there previously.

And she points out that previous generations found creativity in the house that the couple were gifted. A seamstress who used to visit the island to teach knitting and sewing to local women, gave classes there.

As for her own craft, it took Caroline a while to realise how much other people appreciated her photography. But as orders for her work grew, that appreciation helped her grow in confidence.

This year, she responded to an open call for the visual arts programme of Clifden Arts Festival. She included a sample of her photography with her application and was asked to send more, which she did. The result was an invitation to exhibit – and there was only one response to that.

'A Walk on the Island' will run for the duration of Clifden Arts Festival from September 17-27.