A collection of artefacts from the mid-19th century, kept in storage by the National Museum of Ireland for up to a century, went on display for the first time yesterday. The exhibits were unveiled in Castlebar, Co Mayo, at the opening of the first building commissioned by the National Museum outside Dublin since 1890.
A partnership by Mayo County Council, the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, the Office of Public Works and the National Museum saw the Museum of Country Life become a reality.
The national folklife collection represents the traditions of rural life throughout Ireland for the period 1850-1950. As the Minister for Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Ms de Valera, pointed out when she officially opened the museum, the artefacts are not replicas but were made and used by Irish people.
"They are the everyday tools and implements that made life possible. Unusually, for a museum, some of them will have been used within living memory. And still they will look alien to us even though they are from an Ireland not long gone," she said.
The collection is housed in Turlough Park, four miles from Castlebar, in a new 35,000 sq ft exhibition centre built at the rear of the 19th-century house, formerly owned by the Fitzgerald family of Waterford.
Ms de Valera said it was fitting the collection should be based west of the Shannon as many of the artefacts originated in Connacht. "So in a sense this project is a sort of `bringing it all back home'. I think it's very important that we also demonstrate the importance of regionalisation," she said.
The Minister said the museum would help focus attention on the abandoned skills used in past decades. However, it strove to be unsentimental. "This museum is no sanitised theme park but is, as far as it is possible, a true reflection of the life of the common folk of Ireland," she said.
Dr Pat Wallace, director of the National Museum, said the folklife collection was so large it would not all be exhibited at once. Instead the exhibits would be rotated from time to time. "I think it's the most important cultural event of the last number of years. It's certainly the biggest cultural event in Ireland this year," he said.
The chairwoman of the board of the National Museum, Ms Barbara Nugent, said the museum would make a major contribution to Mayo and the country in general.
Until now the folklife collection was stored in Daingean, Co Offaly, and after years of controversy about its future it has finally gone on display.