Reader Photo: At 91, a rebel still
Raised on stories of Ireland, John Boylan tried to capture the spirit of the country in his portrait of his mother.
Margaret Boylan holds a sign reading “Up Mayo,” a point of local pride for the county of Mayo in Ireland. Mayo has always been considered home of the rebels, Boylan says. When Oliver Cromwell was destroying Ireland, the one county he couldn’t get was Mayo.
“What says Irish more than ‘Up Mayo’?” Boylan says. “They consider themselves the best soccer players, the best farmers. They’re proud.”
And at 91, Margaret, a retired nurse, hasn’t lost that Irish pride in 48 years of living here. “She’s still as Irish as the day she got out of the plane, not the boat.”
“You can take the girl out of Ireland but you can’t take Ireland out of the girl.”
John Boylan shot the photo on a lark through a garage window in Burbank — a bit of “dark Irish humor.” He used a Canon 60D and a Tamron 16-300mm F/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD macro lens.
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