Website: www.kennellyarchive.com

The Exhibition is open to the public at the following times 9:00am-5:00pm Monday,Wednesday,Friday and  9:00am-8:00pm Tuesday & Thursday.

The Kennelly Archive represents a lifetime of work by Padraig Kennelly and his wife Joan, bore out of a passion for photography, that has culminated in an in-depth pictorial record of Co. Kerry.

In 1953, a passion for photography lured newly qualified chemist Padraig Kennelly away from the safe haven of the family pharmacy business in Tralee, County Kerry on Ireland's south west coast. Padraig married his child-hood sweetheart, Joan O'Connor in 1956 and together they opened a photography studio at 6 Ashe Street, Tralee, County Kerry.

By the late 1950s Kennelly's Photographic Studio was well established in Tralee. Padraig and Joan Kennelly became firm fixtures around every town and village in Kerry.

Their passion brought them everywhere, the school, the church, the pub and the dancehall. Wherever people were playing or celebrating, be it by day or by night, Padraig and Joan were there to record it. The Kennellys covered every sort of assignment from the ordinary to the extraordinary, during times of tragedy and triumph.

Ireland was still in the grip of tradition but the emerging social scene of the 1950s provided a wealth of photographic opportunities for the Kennellys.

Padraig and Joan were well known figures on the dancehall circuit. They would spend no more than 20 minutes in each dancehall on a Sunday night. They did not take names or cash on the night. Those who wanted photos could order them from local sales agents in Dingle, Castleisland and Killarney or at their studio in Tralee.

In 1959, Joan and Padraig purchased an Ilford postcard-processing machine and began photographing towns, villages, hotels and scenic locations throughout Ireland to produce a nationwide line of black and white, real-photo postcards. Kennelly's was the only company in Ireland at the time printing these types of postcards.

In 1961, Padraig Kennelly began recording film footage. He was one of the first news photographers to be appointed as a freelance stringer cameraman for Radió Telefís Éireann, supplying reports and images to the national broadcaster.

In 1974, Padraig established a local newspaper, Kerry's Eye in Tralee, Co. Kerry. Padraig set up the newspaper in a response to the local governments failure to tackle the problem of repeat flooding in the town. Various plans were put forward but all were declared too expensive to carry out. By the eighth issue of the Kerry's Eye, Tralee UDC announced that work had commenced on the construction of a new culvert. Tralee has had no serious flood in the 30 years since.

The first issue of Kerry's Eye was 12 pages. The weekly newspaper was financed by advertising for the first two years. It remained a free circulation in Tralee until 1980 and sold at a nominal price of 12 pence outside Tralee. The newspaper continues to be printed and published by the family with a weekly circulation of over 26,000. It is the leading independently-owned local paper in Ireland.