"Northern Banking Co. Limited" courtesy of David Brangan Collection © 2002

Below is the article we brought you last year all about the discovery of the Brangan Collection.

Glass Photos of Balbriggan.---Thanks to David Brangan.
Finally we can reveal that David Brangan is the man who has made these photos available to us. In a statement issued to Balbriggan.net, it reads as follows: "These photographs of Balbriggan were taken by my late father, Thomas J. Brangan, of St. Benen's Gormanston. He was born in November 1903 and died in December 1989.

R.W. Thomas in London made the Glass Plates

He used to go around on his bicycle to take photos and while we do not have dates, are presuming they are taken circa. 1920's. If you recognise any of the faces, do not hesitate to contact us. They are original glass slides in their original box. Copyright belongs to David Brangan." The sequence of events is as follows, Team member, Martin Fanning, came into contact with David Brangan during the Special Olympics but it was on a recent meeting that David mentioned to Martin that he had some very old photos and within a few days he gave Martin 12 to see for himself.

Martin contacted Tony who couldn't believe what he was seeing. Because the photos are on glass you can't scan them onto a computer unless you have specialist equipment and this is where our photographic expert comes in. Team member Joe Curtis has seen other photos on glass before so he knew what to do and how.

Tony cleaned each of the 12 glass slides with a damp cloth and Joe scanned them. This took several hours and when we were finished we carefully wrapped each glass and returned them to Martin who in turn returned them to David along with a DVD of the images. David then gave Martin a further 30 glasses and then a final batch of about 58. It took Tony and Joe two full days to clean and scan the final batch and we have to thank Joe's wife, Margaret, for feeding Tony for the two days and allowing her kitchen to be taken over with glass slides everywhere.

Glass plates stacked high

On Monday 5th July in a meeting with Martin and Tony, David has agreed to allow Balbriggan.net to publish the photos on site at a low resolution and as an added security feature has requested a watermark on each. On behalf of Jack Benton, Joe Curtis, Martin Fanning and Tony Healy we sincerely thank David and his wife Colette for their cooperation.

View "Through" a glass plate

Tony, David and Martin