Leitrim People: Through David Knight's Lens

Iced coffee in hand – essential in the glorious 25-degree July sunshine – I follow Knight along the Boyle Arts Festival Art Trail. Camera slung over his shoulder, he seems to spot history everywhere He pops into galleries along the street and stops to photograph artists he already knows, explaining how Boyle was once a garrison town and pointing out buildings that still carry the marks of its past.

To Knight, history isn't locked away in museums. It's written into cracked walls, old buildings and the faces of the people who still live here. David often photographs musicians during the session in Cryan's Pub, Carrick-on-Shannon. The following week they're sitting around the bar, pointing at one of his photographs. "How in the name of God did he capture that!?"

David laughs."Because I know the tune," he says. "I was waiting for him to place his hands there so I could get the shot."

For 45 years, Knight has quietly built one of the largest photographic archives of Leitrim and North Roscommon, documenting communities, traditional music, disappearing trades, landscapes and the ordinary moments that quietly become history.

It almost never happened. Before moving west, Knight was a photographer and journalist in Dublin, freelancing for national newspapers, including The Irish Times. For two years he covered the Troubles in Northern Ireland. "It got to the stage where nobody wanted to know the truth," he says. "You were in fear of your life. Journalists were being targeted. I just realised it wasn't worth the risk anymore."

Forty-five years ago he packed up, headed west and found something completely different. "I always played music," he says. "The Ceili House in Boyle and Cryan's in Carrick were the local music venues. We walked in and immediately met everybody."

Instead of conflict, he found community. "I looked around and thought, 'My goodness, what fantastic communities, culture and people.' I decided that's what I wanted to photograph."

Today, David says four things define everything he does. "Culture, heritage, landscape and people. Those are the four pillars of my work."

Those interests have seen him build an archive containing hundreds of thousands of photographs. "My collection goes back to black-and-white negatives. I photographed the mines in Arigna, the old horse fairs, the marches in Mohill. Many of those things are gone now, but the photographs remain."

Photography also led him around the world. Together with his family, David founded Willow Design, producing greeting cards, calendars and books featuring Irish photography. Their work eventually reached more than 200 shops across Ireland before expanding internationally through trade shows in England, France and the United States.

"We ended up doing QVC in America, gift fairs in New York, Birmingham and Paris." Alongside that success came another thriving business. David estimates he photographed an astonishing 1,928 weddings during his career. "We were booked three years in advance. Eventually we had six people working with us. Wedding photography is probably the hardest discipline there is. You have to be a fashion photographer, a documentary photographer and a people person all at once."

His two sons eventually joined the business, capturing natural moments while David focused on portraits and storytelling. "It's never about what someone looks like. It's about who they are inside."

Now officially retired from commercial photography, David has returned to what he loves most — documenting local life and supporting musicians. As PRO for the O'Carolan Harp Festival and one of the founders of the O'Carolan Collective, he volunteers promoting traditional music across the region.

The recently established O'Carolan Collective brings together musicians, photographers, filmmakers and promoters from Leitrim and Roscommon. Its members recently created a dedicated local music stage at Night and Day Festival, showcasing home-grown performers alongside internationally recognised acts.

"We had 26 musicians arriving by boat to open the festival. It was magical." David said what surprised many people was watching established performers gravitate towards the local traditional musicians. "The big acts all came down to listen because that's where the original music comes from."

Another project close to his heart is the Leitrim Listening Club, which creates intimate spaces where audiences simply sit and listen. "The whole idea is to create listening spaces. Turn off your phone. Listen to the music." He believes traditional music is enjoying a remarkable revival among younger generations.

"When you see eight-year-olds right through to people in their thirties playing traditional music, it's incredible. It has become cool again." David believes Leitrim itself is changing too. "I think Ireland is at a crossroads, and here in Leitrim and north Roscommon people are coming together again to celebrate culture."

Knight often heads out before dawn, searching for the quiet light that transforms familiar places. "I get up around six o'clock because that's when the light is most beautiful," he says. "Whether it's the Bluebell Woods, out on the lakes or standing somewhere listening to birds, you realise very quickly — heaven's already here. "We're lucky enough to be living it."

That outlook comes, he says, from his father. "My dad is 92," Knight says. "He always says the only way to get to heaven, if you're not already there, is to practise your art and share it with others." Knight pauses for a moment before lifting the camera again. Across the street, the afternoon sun catches another old doorway.