Award-winning photographer faced backlash after book review

Ciarán Óg Arnold: ‘I’m attracted to emotional despair, and there’s a lot of that in Ireland’ Picture: Adam Rooke

An award-winning photographer is still dealing with the fallout from a British newspaper report in April which described his prizewinning photography book as a portrait of “small town boozing in Ireland”.

Ciarán Óg Arnold said people from Ballinasloe thought he was “pointing a finger at the town” in his book, titled I Went to the Worst of Bars Hoping to Get Killed. But all I Could do Was Get Drunk Again.

Arnold was ...