Irish culture celebrated in folklife collection at Mayo museum

By Tom Gillespie

THE Keeper of the Irish Folklife Collection at the Museum of Country Life at Turlough House, Castlebar, feels the introductory exhibition in the museum’s galleries should be revamped after 24 years on show.

Ms. Clodagh Doyle told The Connaught Telegraph: “Since we opened in 2001 some of our exhibits are getting quite old and we would love to revamp the introduction area as Ireland today is totally different.

“Irish culture has totally changed. We can’t change the whole exhibition. We were very insular in 2001. We did not have as many communities living here then. So many other cultures have now made Ireland their home and we really need to make sure they feel represented.

“We have been reaching out to community groups and trying to see where they interact with Irish culture. We are trying to reflect other cultures here because it really is important.

“Other cultures have been here for 20 or 30 years, they live and die here so it is important to make them feel recognised.”

Mr. Tom Doyle, eduction officer at the museum, said when they opened in 2001 it is amazing to see how children who came in then knew all the old farming objects on display from their grandparents houses.

He said: “There was still a sense then that children knew that part of their heritage and could relate to the items in our collection. Whereas compared that to now, 20 years later, there is a void, a disconnect, and it is only some, maybe, remote schools that would still have the sense of the folklore collection.

“I find it fascinating that in the space of 20 years that we see that change.”

Clodagh said in the 1930s and ‘40s everyone was living the same way of life, adding: “There was a lot of poverty and we all came from it. People existed in a one or two-roomed house, some died, some emigrated.

“It was everyone’s story. Everyone had that in their background. That is what we all came from.

“Things change in the 1950s and ‘60s when we got money and there was a move away from the land and with industrialisation you had the have-and-the-have-nots and it became a more divided society.

“The poverty element is still inherent but what you find with those objects in our collection when people had lived off the land and really strived to make a living, then everyone was living that same way and all those objects were part of everyone’s homes. Then as people moved up in the world they turned their backs on that, resulting in big changes in society.”

In the 1960s and ‘70s the National Museum made a collection of the folklife items because people were throwing everything out and nobody wanted to see this collection.

She added: “The collection of over 50,000 items went into storage in Dangean in Co. Offaly and it did not come out for 30 or 40 years because people did not want to see it.

“At the end of the day this collection was too close to people and we had to wait that 30 years or so when people were okay with it and the connection to poverty was a little bit further away.

“The collection went on display in 2001 and it celebrated how people lived, worked the land and how they made a living from the land.”