Rose Shaw Collection – early 1900’s

Rose Shaw’s photographs take you back in time to show ordinary life in the Clogher Valley in the early 1900s. Today, the local community and families connected to the photographs are helping to bring the people, places and memories back to life, sharing stories to preserve them for future generations.

Rose Shaw came from Bath, England to Fardross House, near Clogher, to work as a governess for the Gledstane’s. Captain (later Lieutenant-Colonel) Ambrose Upton Gledstanes, 30th Lancers (Gordon’s Horse), an only son, and his wife, Isabella.

Rose was a keen amateur photographer and, at a time when photographs of everyday rural life were rare, her images provide a unique glimpse into the lives of ordinary people in the Clogher Valley. Fewer than 40 photographs are known to exist. Some were published in Carleton’s Country (1930), which had an introduction by Sir Shane Leslie, and others in her book My Irish Friends.

Today, her unique collection preserves an important record of the social and cultural history, people, places and way of life of the Clogher Valley in the early 1900s.

Rose developed her photos at Fardross in a windowless room off the dining room where the Gledstanes kept their silver. The surviving images include a girl with a creel for collecting turf, making hay, smoking pipes, playing fiddles and melodeons, children walking to school barefoot and women clad in traditional dress.

Most of her images feature members of the Holland, McElroy, McCaughey and Tierney families in the townlands of Ballymacan, Ballyscally and Corleaghan, near the village of Clogher.

Later, Shaw moved to Bath, England, where she became known for her theatre costume designs. Her full name was Miss Rosoman (Rose) Lucy Maskelyne Shaw. She was born in 1859 and died in 1949, aged 90.

Clogher Heritage Forum secured Rose Shaw’s images courtesy of National Museums NI and held an exhibition of Rose Shaw’s photographs in Corick House Hotel, Clogher. The local community was invited to view the collection, with over 250 people attending and helping to identify family members featured in the photographs.

The Forum is working with the local community and families connected to the images to record short videos telling the stories behind each photograph.

Photographs are from Carleton’s Country (Talbot Press, Dublin, first published 1930 and reprinted 1931), owned by Richard Mulligan, and Jack Johnston’s My Irish Friends.

View the Rose Shaw collection and hear some of the family stories

Sean McCaughey and John McElroy, Clogher Heritage Forum, share the Rose Shaw story