Barry A. Donahue

 Barry A. Donahue, a man of Worcester who loved Cape Cod and spent his life bringing pictures of its beaches, boats, birds and people to thousands of its newspaper readers, died on Sept. 16. He was 71.
 Donahue, of Brewster, was a skilled photojournalist who combined an eye for every detail of nature from the water rippling around an oar to tiny turtles and the first crocuses of spring with an easy, no-frills manner that connected with his subjects and turned many into friends.
    He roamed from Falmouth to Provincetown shooting for five papers over five decades, starting at The Register in Yarmouth and including two stints at The Cape Codder in Orleans. He hustled to countless side gigs photographing family weddings, mitzvahs and reunions. And he spent his richest hours hanging with his family and his three Springer Spaniels, gardening, building wooden dories in his basement and rowing on Sheep Pond and Pleasant Bay.
 Friends remembered it as a man’s life lived well and fully. “Barry was a gifted photographer but like most of us, he was way more than his occupation,” said Harry Munns, a pal since childhood.
 Donahue was born in 1954, the son of longtime Worcester assistant city clerk Thomas Donahue and his wife Mildred. He was raised in the Vernon Hill neighborhood and grew up with his “Burncoat Park gang” -- a crew bonded by live music in the 1970s that well into adulthood gathered every Thanksgiving for a rough  football scrimmage they called the “Toilet Bowl.”
 He studied at the New England School of Photography and worked taking pictures at the Fogg Museum, where a mentor urged him to get into journalism. He interned in Harvard’s news office and later returned home to work for Worcester Magazine, a weekly.
 Although the city left its mark on his thick accent, he was not particularly sentimental. The “best view” of Worcester, he said more than once, “is in the rearview mirror going any direction out.”
 Donahue met his wife Mary Conley, a nurse practitioner who kept him in line for the next 50 years, on a blind date in 1975. They moved in 1984 to the Cape, where they raised two children. He won a New England Press Association Photographer of the Year award in 1997, belonged to the Cape Cod Viking Club, a rowing group and several times competed in the 20-mile Blackburn Challenge around Cape Ann.
 He was remembered by reporters who worked with him for helping with tips and community scuttlebutt, and for his sardonic sense of humor. John LoDico, formerly of The Register, recalled him as “a complete wiseass (I say that with love)” and a “critic of unfriendly summer people and doofuses who put five 250 hp motors on ugly plastic boats.”
 After cutting back on work, “Bumpa” became a devoted caretaker for his four grandchildren -- babysitting, sharing his Irish gift for telling the good story, cheering them at the hockey rink, and passing on his love of outdoor life from rowing and skiing to fishing and gardening.
 Donahue is survived by his wife Mary, children Meghan Taylor of Brewster and Brendan Donahue of Chatham, and grandchildren Aiden Rehan Donahue, Zahra Sophia Donahue, Finn Michael Taylor and Shea Joseph Taylor,.
 His wish was for a “Viking funeral” -- floating out Pleasant Bay on a wooden boat as fiery arrows rained down. Barring that, he wanted his ashes scattered, but was emphatic that it should be on an outgoing tide.
 After a private ceremony, the family plans a celebration of Donahue’s life on Sunday October 5th from 3-5 pm at 5 Namskaket Road in Orleans in the old Cape Codder pressroom. 
 In lieu of flowers, please consider donating to Pleasant Bay Community Boating.