Irish traditional boats to go on display at Mayo museum
By Tom Gillespie
THE National Museum of Ireland - Country Life is currently developing a gallery at Turlough Park in Castlebar for the permanent display of a selection of boats from the Irish Folklife collection.
The gallery will focus on the traditional boats of the Atlantic coast, with boats and associated material from counties along Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way.
In planning the gallery, Noel Campbell, curator of traditional Irish boats in the Irish Folklife Division of the National Museum of Ireland, has been visiting museums, heritage centres, clubs, boatyards, coastal and fishing communities, boat builders, experts, harbours and strands from the northern headlands in Donegal to the Haven Coast in Cork.
Noel told me: "The plan is to get the gallery open for 2024. It was all stalled with Covid but this is going to be the biggest thing we have done since we opened 20 years ago.
"This will be a west coast boat related maritime museum and will be a permanent display. Thankfully people are still using those boats, but they are gone from being a work horse to leisure craft.
"The main job right now for me is the boats and to get the boat gallery open. We get loads of input from island and coastal communities.
"This exhibition will cover from Donegal to Cork, the whole west coast and every main boat along the way."
He continued: "On the Mayo side, there are two types of curraghs - the Inishkea currach and the Achill yawl.
"We will have interactive video interviews with people who use them, boat plans and 3D models. At the end of the day we will probably get 10 boats in the gallery.
"Our building for the gallery is ready made. We are not looking for land - the building is there and is ready to roll. Within the next month we will be putting in place a designer and project manager and they will be external to the museum and their role will literally be to pull it all together.
"The end result will be that the tangible remnants of the relationship between island and coastal communities and the sea will be safeguarded and displayed here at the National Museum of Ireland - Country Life."
There are up on 40,000 items housed at the museum, which attracts over 100,000 visitors annually, but only a fraction of them - 3,500 - are on display.
Turlough Park House was built in 1865 to replace a much older building near the entrance to the park and was the home of the Fitzgerald family, to whom the estate was granted under the Cromwellian land settlements of the mid-17th century.
At its largest, the Turlough estate consisted of almost 8,500 acres, requiring many indoor servants and outdoor estate workers to maintain the house and lands.
In 1915, the Congested Districts Board - established to initiate economic improvements along the western seaboard - purchased and redistributed the Fitzgerald estate.
A notable family member was George Robert, son of George and later known as the ‘Fighting Fitzgerald’. Famous for his brave and reckless horsemanship, and a renowned duellist, George Robert was involved in a number of disputes and family quarrels. He was found guilty of murder and hanged in Castlebar in 1786.
The architect Thomas Newenham Deane designed Turlough Park House. The two-storey house built of limestone rises to a high-pitched roof with dormer windows. It incorporates an open central Gothic porch bearing the house’s 1865 date stone.
A service area adjoining the house, which once accommodated the kitchen and stable block, now incorporates visitor facilities such as the gift shop and café.
An imposing stained glass window above the porch incorporates the Fitzgerald family crest and bears the motto Honor Probataque Virtus (Honour, Probity and Virtue).
The proposal to open the house as a museum was a local initiative which led eventually to a decision made in 1995 to locate part of the National Museum of Ireland there. As the house was not suitable as a major exhibition space, a new building was purpose-built alongside it.
Housing the museum galleries, this award-winning design was created by the architectural branch of the Office of Public Works (OPW). As part of the project, the OPW also restored the original 'Big House'. The grounds and gardens were restored by Mayo County Council.
The house was renovated and an adjacent museum building was constructed, and the Country Life Museum opened in September 2001. The upstairs of the house is used as offices by the museum staff, and the downstairs is on show to the public.