By Andy Spearman 

Just before Christmas, while wandering around the Drogheda Cottage Market, I came across some beautiful photographs of Japan street scenes taken by Drogheda man Cathal Carolan. They really are eye-catching images and now Cathal is preparing for his first exhibition in his home town. 

Born in Drogheda in January 1995, Cathal has packed a lot into his thirty years, following a very personal and adventurous path which has brought him to many different countries and included art, photography, teaching in different countries, music and skateboarding.

Cathal was always into art and drawing at school, both in Congress Avenue primary and St. Mary’s secondary. “My art teachers always encouraged me and I remember receiving an award in the Texaco Children’s Art Competition” he said. 

Outside of school Cathal was hugely into skateboarding and during his teens he was very involved in the campaign to have a skateboard Park built in Drogheda.

This love of art carried through to third level and, having graduated from St. Mary’s, Cathal went to Dundalk Institute of Technology, earning an Honours Bachelor of Arts in Video and Film.   

“I loved the course, which helped me excel in my passions” Cathal said. “My lecturers often said I had "the eye," and I became the camera operator for every project throughout college.

My Photography modules inspired me to buy my first DSLR and pursue photography seriously. Around that time, I started traveling solo to different countries in Europe. Thanks to my parents (avid travellers) I caught the travel bug early and was lucky to visit many different countries as a kid. 

Travelling solo, photography became his way to explore countries and when he was 20,he spent six weeks in New York, staying with his uncle in Manhattan.

“That summer, I fell in love with street photography” he told Drogheda Life. “Equipped with a DSLR and prime lens in the most cinematic city, I suddenly started capturing great shots and I was super excited.”

After those six weeks shooting in NYC Cathal was hooked and he was delighted when one of those early photos earned me a spot in the finals of the Huawei Snapy Awards in Dublin in 2016.

By 2019, Cathal had moved to Toronto where he landed a job in the video department of Henry's Camera, Canada's largest store.

“It was an incredible place for networking, and I connected with many industry professionals” he said. “I worked on short films and music videos with talented crews and did part-time video editing for Shedlight Creative. Things were going really well for Cathal and then Covid struck. 

“In March 2020, I lost my job as everything shut down. It was a chaotic time, and with no work, I moved back home, expecting it to be brief - but who knew it would be years! 

Japanese art and cinema had always struck a chord with Cathal and it was a long-held dream of his to visit and photograph this intriguing country with a culture that stretches back thousands of years but is also one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. 

He used the time afforded by lockdown to complete an online TEFL course and landed a job in a school in Yamaguchi, south Japan. Yamaguchi is a very small city with barely any other foreigners - so Cathal was well out of his comfort zone.  

“It was quite an experience living there as I got to travel all around West / South Japan and visited some of the most beautiful places" he said. "I would go on photo trips most weekends, shooting a crazy amount of photos.

“After nearly a year in Yamaguchi, I moved to Tokyo, where I lived for 1.5 years. I was working in a preschool there and pursuing photography and music on the weekends. The arts scene in Tokyo is incredible with so much happening.

“I was going to a lot of exhibitions and networking, then my photography started to get attention. I won an award in a Japanese nationwide art contest and after that I became part of the Tokyo Streets photography collective. 

"I took part in exhibitions with renowned photographers such as Roman Fox and Lukasz Palka. I looked up to some of these photographers for years so it was honestly quite surreal!  The contest and exhibition details are all listed on my website:　https://www.cathalcarolan.com/ "

Cathal’s Drogheda exhibition, which takes place in the Kiosk beside Barlow House, (see poster above) captures a single day of Sanja Matsuri 2023 - one of Tokyo’s largest and wildest shrine festivals which attracts around two million people every year.

Renowned for its wild energy and massive crowds, Sanja festival centres around Sensō-ji Temple, where traditional performances and grand shrine processions honour the temple’s founders.

Beyond the main festivities, even wilder celebrations unfold in further districts. In one neighbourhood the yakuza gather - their intense energy and booming chants hard to miss. Sanja is the only time of year when Tokyo’s yakuza publicly unite to show off their tattoos and fashion, offering a rare glimpse into Japan’s underworld.