3 December 2025 

A Moment of Rest with Dogs

Here we have a nice sepia photograph from circa 1910, showing three priests and two dogs. The location is not specified. The two men on the left are identified as being Father Gerald Robinson CM and Father James McDonnell CM.

The photo must have been taken between 1886 and 1924, as both men were ordained and living at that time. The priest on the right may potentially be William O’Connor CM; if it is, it would narrow the date of the photograph to between 1886 and 1897, as Father O’Connor died in 1897.

It is not very common to have photographs as old as this one, and it is all too frequent not to have names or dates on photographs, so this photograph is valuable, as well as being unusual with its inclusion of dogs, because it gives a lot of information often absent from many other archival photographs.