In Loving Memory of Helena Dunne

701

 

Helena Dunne was born on October 22, 1889 in the townland of Carrigeen near Newinn in Co. Tipperary, the last of seven children born to Billy Dunne and Ellen Lyons.

After school at St George's (1905? - 1908), teacher training at The Avenue College, Southampton (1908 - 1910) and a short time in Ashton-under-lyne (between Manchester and Stalybridge), she came to Broxburn where she remained until she retired.

After her death in Glasgow on January 23, 1979 (aged 89), two autograph books, a postcard album (containing as many photographs as postcards), a smaller photograph album and a dictionary came to rest in our house. Entries in the oldest autograph book are dated from Christmas 1904 to 1909, the second album starts from Easter 1909. Most of the photographs date from that era through into the 1930s.

This CD-ROM holds the results of scanning these materials (except the dictionary).

Where brief comments occur on the back of photographs, there are reproduced in bold within double quotes. Where there is more meaty text (eg on postcards), I have included a link to a scanned image of the reverse. Unquoted comments are my own and are open to challenge.

While I have no intention of producing a second edition, I would appreciate any information available on the whos, wheres and whens to fill the obvious gaps in my knowledge.

 

Table of Contents

To give some structure to the materiel, I have arranged things as follows —

Autograph Book 1

Autograph Book 2

The Names
Book 1 has entries dating from 1905 - 1909, mostly.

Book 2 continues from 1909 - 1920s.

A list of names in both books, plus a few others.
 

Ireland

 
Australia

Shotts

 
Lena
Family

Billy and Ellen lived in Carrigeen with Ned, Kate and Bab.
(Plus some other Irish photographs.)

Billy's siblings of whom I have found some trace in Australia.

Lena's sister Margaret married Richard Reynolds in 1912 in Shotts and moved to the east end of Glasgow in 1930.

Photographs of Lena which didn't fit elsewhere.
Friends
The main players are

Pat Dowd,  Nellie O'Brien,  Gladys McHale  and  The Heaneys

but there are a number of other players who have contributed to Lena's life, including some who were students with her at St George's and The Avenue College.

Some friends are represented by postcards.
Broxburn
Scenic views of Broxburn, and photos of Broxburn people.
Montages
Collections of small photos stuck onto card.
Some folk I think I recognise.
Soldiers
A fine collection of unidentified young men in uniform.
others
The repository for anything not allocated above.

Boring techie bits

The CR-ROM has been set up to AutoRun (on Windows systems suitably enabled) an HTML wrapper (ie this file) which, I hope, simplifies the navigation of the images. Each on-screen image has a link to a larger version of the same picture.

The images are numbered —

  • 001 to 088 for the pages of the first autograph book (except 079 which is a blank page),
  • 101 - 252 for the second autograph album (I have not scanned the many blank pages so there are only 47 in this range),
  • 301 - 621 for the contents of the postcard album,
  • 701 - 834 for the contents of the photograph album, and
  • 835 & 836 are a photo and a negative found in the dictionary.

    • The photos and postcards were scanned at 300dpi in 24-bit colour on an Epson Perfection 1640SU Photo using Epson Twain 5.5. (In some cases, the reverse of photos were scanned at 200dpi.) The resulting images were saved in JPEG format at 5% compression in "large" folders. The image was also cropped (where appropriate), reduced to a reasonable size for on-screen viewing and saved at 15% compression in the same format in "small" folders. An HTML wrapper has been provided to facilitate on-screen viewing.

    In most cases, I have accepted the auto-exposure settings in the scanner and have made only minor adjustments to "improve" the images for on-screen use. There are a few shots where the dilapidated condition of the original has justified rather more manipulation.

    If you know some HTML then —
    < spin> The HTML wrapper has been kept very simple to afford maximum compatibility with an unknown target of browser types and versions. < /spin>
    < fact> I don't know much HTML and have cobbled this together as best I can. I hope it works. < /fact>

    The layout is calculated for a 1024x768 screen. If you are viewing at 800x600, sorry, but it will sharpen up your horizontal scrolling skills.

    Yes, I know some of the pages are of unreasonable length but it's all local, there are no phone bills involved, and the organisation was complicated enough without worrying about page size. (And I wrote that before I ran the disc on a Pentium 133 with an 8x CD drive!)

    The CD was written using Nero 5.5 in a single session and finalised. Protocols were ISO Level 1 for file/directory names, ISO 9660 for character set and Joliet (Unicode SVD etc).

    The covers were printed on an HPDJ960 (inkjet), they are not water-resistant and will fade with time. How quickly I do not know, but it will be faster if exposed to strong light.

    Contents

    This CD-ROM was produced by John Reynolds.

    At the time of writing, I can be contacted at
    437 Amulree Street, Glasgow, G32 7SS
    Email   JoshReynolds@tiscali.co.uk