Readers may remember that last year, Tony Corbett, son of ex-rural employee Jerry Corbett, got in touch with us to share his father’s rural memories and photographs. Luckily for us, he has now found a new batch of material from Jerry’s collection, and has very generously agreed to publish them online.

This batch of photographs provides additional context for the iconic rural gang image used in our previous blog post (shown here on left). The featured image above shows the same gang in a different pose, this time with Corbett taking the photograph, and the photographer of the previous image included on the far right.

We are extremely grateful to Tony and his family for access to these images. Such a volume of candid photographs from rural gangs on the ground are quite rare. By Tony’s estimations, the majority of this batch of photos date from c1941—1947.

Jerry’s photographic collection: take two

click any image to start slideshow

A rural gang hard at work

Transport of poles aboard the ‘Wicklow Head’, later wrecked off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1947

A ‘load’ of poles!

Unloading the cargo

Unloading the cargo

Rural workers in polefield, possibly Cork

Rural workers in polefield, possibly Cork

ESB truck

Corbett with ESB truck

Corbett and rural colleague

Life on the road as a rural ganger

Rural gang

Rural gang, with canine supervisor

Rural gang including Corbett (middle)

Rural gang

Rural gang

Rural gang

Erecting rural poles

Hard at work: the physical effort required to erect the poles

Erecting rural poles

Don’t try this at home!

Don’t try this at home!

The days before health and safety! Jerry Corbett pictured on the right

Don’t try this at home!

A ride around the polefield

Corbett (front) with colleague

Hard at work: moving poles up steep terrain

Hard at work: moving poles up steep terrain