{"id":215610,"date":"2025-12-04T20:10:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T20:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/215610\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T20:10:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T20:10:11","slug":"im-glad-the-judge-said-those-words-without-them-itd-have-been-a-slower-process-to-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/215610\/","title":{"rendered":"I\u2019m glad the judge said those words\u00a0\u2014 without them, it\u2019d have been a slower process to here"},"content":{"rendered":"

After the property market crashed, I was in the Family Law Court in Dublin. I\u2019d been in auctioneering all my life, I was a valuer, doing valuations for court cases.<\/p>\n

On this day around 2009, I was in court doing a valuation for the husband in a divorce case \u2014 another valuer was there for the wife. And the judge said: “How can you valuers be sure of the value of anything now? Sure everything\u2019s gone, the market has crashed.”<\/p>\n

What the judge was saying was factual \u2014 the banks weren\u2019t giving any money, nobody wanted to buy anything, everybody wanted to sell. I\u2019d been thinking it alright… what am I going to do? But his words were my worst fear realised \u2014 they kind of shook me.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d been in the business since I was 19. I was 59 now, and it\u2019s a shock to get at 59, to be thinking \u2018what am I going to do now?\u2019. I had no work anymore, no income, I needed to do something. That judge was the catalyst for realising it.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a gap between the time you realise something, and when you take action. It wasn\u2019t instantaneous, no flash. It took a while. I didn\u2019t make a plan, but there was a touch of serendipity\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n

A man I knew, retiring as an aerial photographer. I was always into photography. My first job as an auctioneer, they had a fabulous camera for taking pictures of houses. The boss was a decent fella and one weekend I said \u2018I\u2019m going to an airshow, would you mind if I borrowed the camera?\u2019 And I started taking pictures of airshows.<\/p>\n

I loved that about photography \u2014 capturing a moment in time, a very fleeting moment someone else mightn\u2019t see \u2013 that I could create in this way.<\/p>\n

And I loved airplanes, loved going up in them. Cork Airport opened in 1961. Our home was right on the flight path for planes coming in from the north. These were propeller planes and they were slow. First you heard this distant rumble and then they very slowly passed \u2014 you got a really great look. I\u2019d climb up on the shed to see even closer.<\/p>\n

\"WithWith his head quite literally among the clouds, Cork\u2019s Dennis Horgan smiles as he launches The Coast of Cork: A View From Above, a celebration of the county\u2019s landscapes seen through his unique aerial lens. Picture Chani Anderson.<\/p>\n

I was 14, 15, I\u2019d never seen anything like it. Incredible to see these machines, suspended in the air like birds. And the airline colours, the striking liveries on them back then. The ones I saw \u2014 Cambrian Airlines from Wales, BEA, exotic things like Starways, a cargo airline.<\/p>\n

Maybe the third plane to land in the airport, a flight from Cardiff, my aunt brought me to see it landing\u2026. It was very primitive then, no pathway to go the right way, very little fencing.<\/p>\n

But\u2026 hundreds of people standing near the apron while this plane came in. They started moving towards it, not rushing it, but the plane was still moving. The security couldn\u2019t handle it \u2014 the fire engines came, sprayed the people with water. And everybody stopped, and the plane made its way.<\/p>\n

I was just fascinated. Every Saturday morning my best pal and I cycling up there, spending the day spotting planes. No internet then… my brother knew someone working in the airport, he\u2019d tell us what type of plane was landing, what airline, where it was coming from, what time it\u2019d land.<\/p>\n

That they could leave a patch of concrete in the middle of London, land in another patch of concrete up near Ballygarvan \u2014 I still find amazing.<\/p>\n

So I loved photography and I loved planes, and the two coincided, and that\u2019s how the whole thing started. This aerial photographer I knew was retiring, and I thought I might give it a go.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I mentioned to an auctioneer pal I was doing something interesting one Friday \u2014 my brother\u2019s friend taking me for a helicopter spin down to the Fastnet. He said: “You\u2019ve a camera, haven\u2019t you? Could you take a picture of this farm I\u2019m selling near Bandon?”<\/p>\n

I took the photo\u2026 The auctioneer paid for it\u2026 and it crystallised for me: if one man wants this there must be others.<\/p>\n

I started going up for auctioneers once or twice a month with Atlantic Flight Training Academy, I\u2019d wait \u2018til I had three or four jobs. A priest looked for a picture of his church and paid me. I did work for the City Council, the Harbour Commissioners.<\/p>\n

I thought maybe I\u2019d do an aerial photography book of Cork. I\u2019ve done eight now, including two of Dublin and one of lighthouses.<\/p>\n

Absolutely 1,000% I love it. I sometimes ask: do I go flying to do aerial photography or do I do aerial photography to go flying.<\/p>\n

Flying 1,000 feet over farms, towns, lighthouses, I see how beautiful they are \u2014 and see it for a long time. Whereas in a plane: vroom, like going up in a lift, you\u2019re in the clouds, then the sunshine, and you\u2019ve seen nothing.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad the judge said those words. Without them, it\u2019d have been a slower process to here. The serendipity that happens in life. I found I could turn my hobby into a business. I look back: somebody was pushing buttons for me somewhere, and it wasn\u2019t me.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Coast of Cork \u2014 A View from Above by Dennis Horgan<\/p>\n