THREE brothers from Liscannor have returned home from the United States and Australia to recreate a childhood photograph taken nearly 70 years ago.
The original image shows twins Johnny and Gussy White, aged 10, alongside their younger brother Andy, then eight, standing outside St Brigid’s National School in Derreen, Liscannor, in 1958.
Nearly seven decades later, the brothers reunited outside the former schoolhouse to recreate the treasured photograph during what they believe may have been their final opportunity to stand together in the same place.
Today, Johnny lives in Glen Ellyn and Gussy in Crystal Lake, both suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, USA, while Andy now calls Melbourne, Australia home. Their sister, Eileen Considine of Miltown Malbay, also joined the recreation, standing in the background just as another child had appeared in the original image.
The family only rediscovered the photograph by chance after spotting it in Clare Library’s online Michael John Glynn photographic archive in 2007.
“We were scrolling through the archive and Johnny suddenly said, ‘Stop, stop. That’s us,'” his wife, Marilyn White, recalled.
At the time, Clare Library invited members of the public to help identify people in its historic photograph collection. Once Johnny identified himself and his brothers in the image, the family was able to download a watermark-free copy.
The photograph became a treasured keepsake for the family, with Johnny using it as the wallpaper on his mobile phone for years.
The idea of recreating the photograph came to Marilyn while she and Johnny were walking around Derreen during a visit to Clare earlier this year.
“If all three of them were going to be together again, this was the best opportunity to recreate it,” she said.
The recreation was kept secret until the brothers reunited in June, when Johnny and Marilyn surprised Andy and his wife Laura during a family gathering. It was the first time they had seen each other in around ten years.
Following the photoshoot, the siblings spent time walking around their old school, sharing memories of their classmates, teachers and childhood.
Johnny admitted he had no recollection of the original photograph being taken.
“They used to come around once a year and take photographs at the schools,” he said. “We never got a copy back then.”
The White family grew up in Clare and were among ten children. Johnny said school life in rural Clare was very different in the late 1950s.
“We went to school barefoot in the springtime and worked on the farms,” he recalled.
Marilyn recalled hearing Johnny and his cousins laugh about what they called “red rags” from their walks to school.
Johnny explained that when they were walking to school barefooted their feet would “get cut up and we would have to wrap rags around our feet because they were bleeding”, especially their big toes.
His brother Gussy also remembered bringing a sod of turf to school each winter to help heat the classroom, collecting water from Guthrie’s Well for hot cocoa at lunchtime and playing marbles behind the school.
At lunchtime he said, boys and girls were kept apart by a six-foot wall that divided the playground.
He fondly recalled teachers Mrs Susan McDonough and Master Brendan Vaughan, adding that one of his favourite jobs was leaving class each day to collect Brendan Vaughan’s lunch from his nearby home.
After the recreated photograph was taken, it was combined with the original image by Caitríona Considine of Moher Cottage, who also framed copies for members of the family.
Marilyn said the response after the photograph was shared online had been overwhelming.
“This was probably our last chance to get this photo,” she said. “Everybody is getting older and we don’t know when we’ll all be together again.
