An Irish photographer, who was out having dinner in Paris during the terrorist attacks on Friday evening, has documented his experiences of the night and of the aftermath, saying “I’ve had a knot in my stomach for the past few days.”
Allen Kiely, speaking to Newstalk’s George Hook, said that he and a friend where in a restaurant near Rue de Charonne, in the 11th, not far from La Belle Équipe, where 19 people were shot dead by terrorists. In total, 129 people lost their lives in the city as seven orchestrated terrorist attacks where carried out after 9pm on Friday night.
Describing the scenes, Kiely said “I noticed these gendarmes with their arms drawn and they were hiding behind buildings.”
“At that point, we didn’t know what was happening.”
A regular visitor to the French capital, over the following days, Kiely marvelled at the resilience of Parisians in the aftermath of the attacks. Taking his camera to Place de la République, where people were holding candle-lit vigils to those lost, he documented some of the scenes.
You can look at his photographs in the gallery below, and you can listen back below to the interview.
