The town of Abbeyfeale in Co Limerick has bared all to raise money for charity.

The calendar, aptly titled 'Abbeyfeale - The Bare Essentials', saw loals strip off and be captured in everyday poses.

The first photograph for the cover image took place on a very cold and early Sunday in August, where five brave soles braved the elements.

Photographer John Morris told Moncrieff there was no turning back after that.

"Like a lot of towns, [Abbeyfeale] is struggling to some extent with closures, people migrating - but there's still so much positivity there in the town," he said.

"I suppose it's still the people and the community that's really the driving force to Abbeyfeale as a location."

Brain drain

He said the idea actually dates back to the financial crash.

"Going back to where this started was going back in the crash of 2008/2009, there was a lot of talk about the brain drain on the town," he said.

"Another classic one you hear up and down the country [is] there's nothing in our town - that kind of attitude.

"I'm a dad of five kids, beautiful wife, and I was looking at what's going to happen to my kids when they get to that age profile.

"I didn't want them to feel 'There's nothing in my town, I have to leave'.

"They might want to leave, and that's OK, but I just didn't want them to feel that they had to leave.

"Then when COVID came along I reignited the idea again, did a bit of research and then post-COVID I said maybe now is the time to start talking about our town in a positive light.

"This is where the calendar developed further into that; I said 'Let's go a little bit higher, and let's go a bit braver'.

"Obviously the name of the calendar is The Bare Essentials, but the key to that in brackets is that Abbeyfeale is more than the bare essentials - we have everything that we do need here in town."

On shooting the calendar, he said the nudity was a tough sell.

"We started obviously with the bigger groups who knew each other and stuff like that," he said.

"I wanted to be very tasteful, obviously a bit of fun, good humour but not smutty in any way.

"Once people saw a few samples of how I was doing it, how I was approaching it, it was a little bit easier.

"There was an awful lot of cases of 'Tom said he'll do it, so now Mary has to do it', but it was a tough sell."

'Tough stories'

He said half the proceeds will go to the Irish Cancer Society, with some of those in the calendar going through treatment at the moment.

"There's a couple of tough stories, there's hopeful stories and there's human stories," he said.

"We did a shot there in the local pub with a gentleman called Jim, or Long Jim as he's known as.

"He's been going through treatment, his diagnosis hasn't been fantastic, but it came up in conversation about partnering with the Irish Cancer Society.

"He wanted to give back, he wanted to help in some way; so we did a shot Jim and his two nephews.

"If you look closely at the calendar, he's holding the royal flush and that metaphor of you play the cards you're dealt - that was just a nice little nod for that, that he had a good deck," he added.

The calendar is available online with worldwide shipping.