Class trip to Castletown

On Friday 1 of August we visited Castletown House in Cellbridge, the eighteenth-century Palladian house built by Speaker William Conolly. The house and parkland are really stunning. The house was preserved thanks to the efforts of Desmond Guinness and the Castletown Trust. The OPW took over the house in the 1990s and undertook an extensive restoration project. The tour was a fantastic insight into to the life of one of Ireland’s wealthiest eighteenth century families, but also told of the decline of the family.

As well as undertaking the tour we got to roam around the wonderful gardens and we even spotted a hedgehog! We also managed to get our first full class photo (complete with coordinators).

The photos supplied here were taken by our class photographer, Brian Matthews.

Yarn Bomb Projects that have inspired us

We thought we would share some other Irish Yarn Bomb projects that inspired us!

Molly Malone was yarn bombed in 2012.

Hundreds of Galway children took part in a project in 2012 to cover the Galway Hooker sculpture.

The Trinity college Pomodoro Sculpture (outside the Berkley Library) was given an unconventional yarn bombing in February.

The Casino at Marino have been busy Yarn Bombing all through Heritage Week. You can see more of their pictures on their Facebook or Twitter page.

National Folklore Department

On Tuesday we went to visit the National Folklore Department at UCD. The collection is held in an archive at the Department of Folklore in UCD and is the second largest Folklore Collection in the world after Finland’s collection. We were given a guided tour of the collection by Criostoir Mac Carthaigh, the archivist at the centre and author of Traditional Boats of Ireland: History, folklore and construction.

Criostoir told us about the early folklore collectors who established the National folklore Commission and the pioneers of Irish ethnology and ethnography collections. he also showed us some of the wonderful paintings in their department (pictured above is the folklorist Sean O’Sullivan). We were allowed to see some documents from the archive too. Criostoir showed us some copy books from the ‘School’s Folklore Scheme’ which was carried out between 1937-38. Over 20,000 school children took part by collecting family folk stories. This collection is currently being digitized.

Criostoir also explained how surveys are structured and carried out. They are currently undertaking a survey on Cromwell in Ireland and it can be filled out here. One of the highlights was viewing an ediphone machine (picture below of Criostoir showing the machine) which was used in field work in the 1930s as well as a phonograph (picture below). We were also allowed to hear an interview from the period and some music that had been recorded in the 1930s.

We would like to thanks Criostior and Simon for taking the time out to show us the wonderful collection.

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.

Home Rule in Ireland

We are coming to the end of our Irish History module and this week in class we have been looking at the passing of the Home Rule Act of 1912 and the 1916 rising. We also went to visit the Asgard Exhibition at the National Museum Collins Barracks. The Asgard was used to smuggle weapons and ammunition into Ireland for the nationalist cause in July 1914. The action was designed to imitate the Larne gun running and other arms smuggling which the unionists in Ulster had undertaken.  The nationalists were not as succesful as the unionists, however. While the arms were unloaded by the Irish Citizen Army with relative success, Dubliners lined the streets to jeer the soldiers who had been attempted to stop the unloading of the arms. This prompted the soldiers to open fire on the assembled crowd. They shot dead three and wounded thirty-eight Dubliners. As well as the ship, the exhibition has footage of the returning soldiers as they made their way up the Dublin Quays and of the funerals of those who were killed.

The ship is a wonderful piece of tangible history. My favourite part of the exhibition (a part from the Asgard itself) is this wonderful image of the ‘Home Rule egg’ which shows the building tension in Ireland from 1912 when it became clear that the Home Rule bill would pass into law. The Ulster Covenant signed on 28 September 1912 showed that while the bill had passed through parliament, a sizeable portion of the Ulster population were prepared to do everything in their power to stop the introduction of Home Rule. It’s amazing how such a simple image can capture the complexities of the politics of the day. It also fits nively with our next visit which will be to see the Hugh Lane exhibition ‘Revolutionary States: Home Rule and Modern Ireland’

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.

Kilmainham Gaol visit

We were very excited about our trip to Kilmaingham Gaol which took place last week! Our tour guide, Liz, navigated us around the two prison wings imparting much eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century political and social history. We having been learning about some of the soldiers stationed in Beggars Bush Barracks including the auxiliaries who were stationed here during the War of Independence. Liz told us all about the political prisoners locked up by these soldiers during the 1916 rising, the War of Independence and the Civil War which provided a great contrast for us especially as we are beginning to study this period of history in class at the moment. Ricky was, as ever, on hand to take pictures and has provided these wonderful shots.

Thanks for the excellent tour Liz!

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!

Class trip to Kilkenny

During our trip to Kilkenny we went to view the exhibition at the Butler Gallery, took a tour of Kilkenny Castle and had a look around St Canice’s Cathedral. We also undertook projects on buildings around the city including the Tholsel, the Black Abbey and Rothe House which we will be posting over the next week.

Ancestry.com

The Irish Times announced today that Ancestry.com is to create 35 new jobs in the heritage and geneology sector when they open their international headquarters in Dublin. Their Vice President Olivier van Calster said that “Ireland was chosen for a number of reasons, not least because of the great availability of talented people, but also because it is a country that has a long history of emigration and plays a significant role in the family history of people across the globe”. The link to their careers page is here.