IN life, timing tends to be everything and Al Boum Photo’s owners, Joe and Marie Donnelly, certainly have a happy knack of being in the right place at the right time. Cork-born Donnelly (74), is a former bookmaker who took over his father’s business and brought it to the next level.

“Joe Donnelly would have received a very good education from his dad but he was very much a self-made man. In bookmaking parlance, he began at the end of the line and went on to buy rails pitches from the Fogartys in the early 80s. He certainly made very good use of them,” said a bookmaking source.