Kilkenny photographer Fiona Jackson laid to rest

Her many friends in Kilkenny will be sad to hear of the passing of Fiona Jackson who lived for many years in the city and Ballyragget.

The 64-year-old, quietly spoken photographer with a keen eye for a portrait shot was a familiar figure in the city for many years.

She was buried in Dean’s Grange Cemetery, Dublin on Friday in a low-key ceremony with her half-sister and close family friends present.

She worked in the Kilkenny Standard newspaper in the early 1980s, predominantly as a photographer but also took on journalistic assignments.

When it closed, she set up Castle Studios in the centre of the city with fellow photographer, Michael Brophy.

She was a great horsewoman and a member of the North Kilkenny Hunt.

She specialised in equine shots and loved horse shows and race meetings.

She was also the photographer for the Kilkenny Agricultural Show and the Kilkenny Greyhound Track for many years.

Her father, Edward Hugo Milburn Jackson was the BBC’s correspondent in Australia and led an extraordinary life.

On his retirement, the family moved from Somerset in England to Killiney in Dublin and then to Ballyragget where he bought the old school house. He died in 1972.

Fiona’s mother who passed away some years later was a member of the Power family, Grace Dieu, Waterford.

Fiona moved to Ballyragget with her parents in the late 1960s and attended primary school in Durrow and afterwards, the secondary school at the Brigidine Convent, Abbeyleix.

She graduated from the Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork city and chose to specialise in photography. She was extremely artistic and was much in demand for her photographs.