These are some old photos of County Wicklow dating from around 1890 to 1900.
They were probably originally black and white but were later colorized.
They come courtesy of The Library of Congress in in Washington which holds a repository of thousands of photographs from around the world.
Although Ireland has seen huge changes politically, economically and technologically since those times, amazingly many of the scenes in the photographs have remained largely unchanged. Many generations have come and gone in the meantime but the landscape lives on.
There is, however, one photograph which will not be familiar to most people nowadays. That is the photo 0f the Phoulaphuca falls which no longer flow like they used to since the hydroelectric scheme was built in the 1940′s. Unless the reservoir upstream gets too full, which is very rare these days, when the floodgates are opened and the falls briefly flow like they used to.
Click on the images to get the full size views.
