Billy Mundow: ‘When I moved to Inishbofin, the locals didn’t speak to me for a few days…’

From its remotest islands to the heart of Dublin city, the Wicklow-born photographer has been capturing Ireland’s beauty for over 50 years. Here, he talks about why he moved to Inishbofin, the purity of the islanders and how camera phones are killing the art of photography

A summer's day, Tory Island, 1968. Photo: Billy Mundow

Alex Meehan

There’s something completely unreasonable about choosing to live on an island off the west coast of Ireland. And, in many ways, Billy Mundow is an unreasonable man. But it’s the kind of unreasonableness that results in character, wit and determination.

At 80 years of age, he has been taking photographs of the world around him for over half a century, and much have focused on life on the islands off Ireland’s coasts. There are 23 such inhabited islands, and visiting any of them is a visceral reminder that the world isn’t always as tame and domesticated as it seems.