St Brigid’s day

Happy St Brigid’s day or Happy Imbolc day? Did you know that St Brigit’s day which falls on 1 February was formerly a very important Celtic festival celebrating the goddess Imbolc. This day was one of the 4 important quarter days for the celts. The other three include Beltane, Lughnasadh and Samhain. Imbolc’s day marked the beginning of the spring. Imbolc means ‘in the belly’ and probably refers to the period when sheep give birth. The fact that the date coincides with celebration of a Christian saint is not uncommon. The Christian church often took over pagan holidays as a way of popularising itself and ensuring converts to it’s cause so many christian days of celeberation that are distinctly Irish fall on, or very near, to pagan feast days.

To mark the day, and as part of our Folklore studies, we will be reading about the life of St Brigid from Patricia Lynch’s Knights of God. We couldn’t resist adding the cover as we love the 1960s illustration. We will also be attempting to make St Brigit’s crosses… If we manage to assemble one correctly we might add the pictures later but here is a clip from an expert on how to make them.

Museum Review: Natural History Museum

 The Natural history Museum is located on Merrion Street, next door to the National Gallery. The Museum is perfect for browsing at your own leisure. People who like to draw can sit and enjoy and sketch away for hours. This would be an ideal place to bring children and teens and the adults can enjoy it as much as the children as it really is spectacular and has beautiful scenes of animals in their natural habitat and in natural poses such as ‘a mother bird feeding its young’

The museum has two floors, the floors are divided into sections on the first floor you have the Irish room animals native to Ireland and on the second floor you have what is called ‘The Mammals of The World’. On the upper floor you will find an elephant, polar bear, lions, an array of monkeys, apes and lemurs.

Its like being in a zoo only they being obviously still and you can see the animal up close, I bet nobody has seen a lion or a polar bear up close!Children and adults can experience the Discovery Zone and Reading Room within the Museum. Family Tours and Children tours can be arranged and the Museum provides Education Programme and My Museum Workshops give families with young children a chance to handle objects and experience the Museum in a fun and exciting way.  I was very impressed with the museum shop as it has a lot of nice things and a wide range of children’s books. I got a lovely one for my little cousin!

The Natural History Museum opens from Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm and 2pm to 5 pm on Sundays and admission is free.

Georgina Metcalfe

Oral History Project

We have been learning about Oral History in class and reading Kevin C. Kearn’s wonderful Oral History studies of Stoneybatter and of Tenement Life in Dublin. We have also carried out our own Oral History Interview. On Wednesday Patricia Davies came to speak to the class about her time working as a book binder and a paper feeder. Patricia also told us about what it was like to be a woman working in the Print Industry in the 50s and 60s and returning to work in the 90s after she had raised her family. We would like to thanks Patricia for giving up her time to talk to the class. Our interview will be deposited in the museum library.

Freemason’s Grand Lodge, Molesworth Street

We couldn’t resist posting these pictures from our Wednesday afternoon trip out. This week we visited the Freemason’s Grand Lodge on Molesworth Street. Our guide is pitcured above in the Templars chapel of the lodge. As he guided us through the cermonial rooms he dispelled many of the myths surrounding the Freemasons and did a fantastic job of answering all of our questions. It was a very interesting afternoon and an excellent tour.

Congratulations!

Everyone at the museum would like to say a big congratulations to our former course trainees who are taking up courses at third level institutions  in September. Well done to Chris McDonagh, who will be studying Humanities in Dundalk Institute of Technology, Luke Lyons who will be studying Arts in NUI Maynooth and Terence Mullally who will be undertaking the TAP programme at Trinity College Dublin. Please come back after your first term and tell us all how you are getting on!

Work Experience

As part of our work experience module we undertake work experience. For the next three weeks we are working at a variety of cultural, heritage and educational institutions throughout Dublin: Ricky is undertaking his work experience at St Patrick’s Cathedral; Jackie is at Kilmainham Gaol; Katherine is at Jig; Laura is at Rush Library; Dorina is at the Fingal Archive; Terry is at the Maritime Museum;  Gillian and Caoimhe are at the Natural History Museum (Store) and Georgina is staying at the museum to undertake an archiving project. We are undertaking work experience during Heritage Week  18-26 August so we are looking forward to getting involved and helping out with activities for the week in each of our institutions.

When we return we will share with you some of the activities that we undertook over our work experience.

Gas From a Burner by James Joyce (1912)

When we visited the Distillers press in NCAD back in May Sean Sills told us about a poem that James Joyce wrote in 1912 about a printer who refused to print Dubliners. We were reading the book at the time so have since sought out the poem and read it in class and we thought we would share it with you. We hope you enjoy it, thanks Sean!

Gas From a Burner by James Joyce (1912)

Ladies and gents, you are here assembled

To hear why earth and heaven trembled

Because of the black and sinister arts

Of an Irish writer in foreign parts.

He sent me a book ten years ago. I

read it a hundred times or so,

Backwards and forwards, down and up,

Through both the ends of a telescope.

I printed it all to the very last word

But by the mercy of the Lord

The darkness of my mind was rent

And I saw the writer’s foul intent.

Local History Project

Following on from our local history week we thought we would share with you the topics that we researched.

Caoimhe Cullen: For my local history project I researched my local area of Sandymount and Ringsend, which are very close to the Barracks! I was really interested to find that Martello Tower was built during the Napoleonic wars.

Richard Haughton: For my project I researched St Nahi’s church in Dundrum. It was hard to limit my word count in the end! The people who are buried in the graveyard and connected with the church are very interesting. The Duke of Wellington was baptised in the church and the baptismal font used for the Duke is still in the church today.

Dorina Hickey: I looked at Skerries Mill, near where I live, for my local history project. I am also going there on my work experience so it was nice to get some research done on the building. The guides show the mills up and running. I think it was great that this building was rescued by Fingal County COuncil and FAS in the 90s and now it is such an intrinsic part of the community. The visitors centre is located where the bakery used to be and the coffee shop employs local people.

Gillian Johnson: My project looked at Avoca, Co Wicklow. It focused on the mining community and the origins of the place-name. I uncovered a personal connection to Mathew Johnson who was the founder of the copper mines in the area.

Aaron Lee: I looked at the history of New Castle Lyons and Rathcoole. I found out about how the High Kings of Ireland were crowned at New Castle Lyons. I also came across the history of the Poitin Still pub in Rathcoole (pictured above). It doesn’t still brew poitin but the big brass tanks they used to use are above the fireplace in the pub.

Katherine Lynch:
I looked at Corcagh park in Clondalk ehich is on the lands of what was Corcagh House Demesne, a beautiful stately home that has since been demolished. Dublin County Council acquired the land from Sir John Galvin in the 1980s and they have since preserved some of the buildings and gardens. It had been owned  by the Finlay/Colley family for over 200 years.

Terence Mullally: I researched the School House Hotel, Ballsbridge, formerly St Stephen’s Parochial School House. It was designed by Deane and Woodward who designed the Museum building in Trinity College Dublin as well as the Kildare Street Club. During the 1916 rising the British Army believed that there were a large group of rebels stationed in the schoolhouse and fighting from it but once the building was taken it became apparent that the rebels were stationed in Clanwilliam House, the building across the canal which burned down later in the rising.

Laura Scanlon: I looked at Kenure House in Rush Village, Co. Dublin. This house was built in the early eighteenth century. It came into the Duke of Ormond’s possession in 1703. After a fire destroyed most of the original structure in 1827 the architect George Papworth was employed to restore the house. He also designed Ardgillan Castle in Skerries. Kenure was demolished in 1978 as it had fallen into dangerous disrepair.

Barbara Spain: For my project I looked at my local area Clondalkin. I looked at the Round Tower and the church as well as some of the famous people associated with the area. There are pilgrims to St Brigit’s well in the area still to this day. People tie ribbons to the tree near beside the well and leave rosary beads.

How to make a printer’s hat

We have been very busy for the last fortnight with school tours at the museum. This means that our newer team members Gillian, Caoimhe and Barbara have been perfecting their printer’s hat. Here’s a nice instruction guideline we found online.

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde

We are now in the second term of our course and have completed six of our nine modules including Work Experience, Local History, Communications, Folklore, Archeology and Reception Studies. We have also just finished Dubliners so our reading group is moving on to Dr Jekll and Mr Hyde the novella by Robert Louis Stevenson which was first published in 1886.