Lady Maud Montgomery and the barefoot Irish boy

Embed from Getty Images

Lady Maud Montgomery, nee Farrar, wife of Bishop Montgomery and mother of Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, out shopping in Moville, Ireland. A barefoot young boy helps her with her purchases. Original Publication: Picture Post - 1556 - Lady Montgomery Goes Back Home - pub. 1943 (Photo by Leonard McCombe/Getty Images)

The camera never lies, which is why someone tweeted this photograph and its blurb from Getty Images, adding "No words."

Except, as a couple of replies to that tweet and to people who commented on it show, there are words, and those words show the picture is not what it seems.

It doesn't do for the English to make light of poverty in Ireland, but that's not what's being shown here.

The photograph is presenting a backward picture of Ireland - one which find a particular market in the US - and it's hard to see that being useful to anyone.

Another tweet, further down the thread, shows the best response to this attitude.

Incidentally, Field Marshall Montgomery hated his mother. He refused to allow his son David to have anything to do with her, and refused to attend her funeral in 1949.

That's from Wikipedia, so we know it's true.