Collins Barracks is adding a more benign chapter to its varied history with a summer season of outdoor events, reports Arminta Wallace.

'And because this is a barracks, I want you to march. Ready?" A dozen pairs of eyes light up. They're ready, all right. A tiny blond boy in a Vodafone shirt lifts his foot doubtfully; beside him, a girl in pink canvas loafers stamps along without a care in the world, surrounded by chatter and laughter. The summer programme is under way at the National Museum of Decorative Arts and History, and it is oddly moving to hear the sound of children having a ball at Collins Barracks, for though the splendid Georgian square looks benign in the summer sunshine, the ghosts of history are never far away. On the other side of the courtyard, restoration work is being carried out on a building that had to be destroyed after an outbreak of typhoid in the last century.

Back in the cheery present, the marchers have made their way upstairs and are gazing, entranced, at a trio of Tang dynasty horse figurines. Led by the museum's education officer, Anne Fay, they are about to embark on a workshop called Chinese Creatures, part of the Museum Outdoors series of events that will run until the end of August.

Each week will focus on a different country. This, obviously, is China week, to be followed by Germany, Spain, England, France and Ireland. On weekday afternoons there are appropriately themed art workshops, talks and gallery tours.

Saturday afternoons will see Clarke Square occupied by, among others, Fossett's Circus, a French mime artist and a Punch and Judy show. On Sunday afternoons the emphasis is on performance, offering an eclectic collection of musical styles from the Latin rhythms of the Pasados Dance Company to those purveyors of nostalgic Britpop The Classic Beatles.

The idea is to get people into the museum and, as the title suggests, to get the museum out into the open air. But Museum Outdoors is more than just a bit of summer fun, and the appeal isn't just to children. Each week a special themed brochure gives visitors the opportunity to browse through highlights of the museum collections in a bite-sized self-guided tour - and for lovers of porcelain, the Chinese selection contains some pieces to take the breath away.

"This," says the museum's curator of ceramics, glass and Asian material, Audrey Whitty, indicating an exquisite porcelain vase, "is the jewel in the museum's crown." The 14th-century Fonthill Vase arrived in Ireland via Hungary, France and Albania. It was bought by the museum at an auction of goods belonging to the bankrupt Duke of Hamilton in 1882, though its true identity and value weren't realised until the 1960s.

"It's one of the few pieces of Chinese porcelain whose history can be traced right back to its origins in the kilns of Jingdezhen in Jiangxi province," says Whitty. "In those days porcelain was considered as rare and precious as gold, because nobody in Europe could figure out how to make it."

Moving at the speed of light from one glorious piece to the next - a cheeky stone dog in brilliant shades of turquoise and red, a translucent figurine of a Dutch merchant with a monkey climbing up his leg, a magnificent charger covered with pink and purple chrysanthemums - Whitty keeps up a dizzying commentary. How a celadon glaze produces a translucent shimmer. How the man who finally cracked the porcelain mystery and patented the recipe in 1749 was a Dubliner called Thomas Frye. How to tell a real Ming vase from a European fake.

"And look at these Tang dynasty sculptures," Whitty continues. "They suggest the animal by a single detail, almost like primitive art, yet they could have been made last year. What I think is amazing is the musculature of these horses. They didn't overdo it; it's really subtle. Westerners often look at oriental art and say it's flat, lacking in the three- dimensional qualities we're used to, but look at those horses and you'll see they've had three-dimensional art in China since the eighth century."

The pieces, which were probably buried with their owners, are also eloquent testimony to the fact that the struggle between the relative status of "art" and "craft" in human endeavour dates as far back as human artefacts.

"It's a debate which is very much alive in Ireland now," says Whitty. "Especially as there's so much happening in glass, ceramics and metalwork in Ireland at the moment. Those little animals were made by craftspeople, but they are, in every sense of the word, art."

Back at the Chinese Creatures workshop, plasticine animals are springing up all around the tables as if by magic. Samuel, who is nine, is assembling a sophisticated black dragon with red legs and black feet; Donovan, also nine, is making one of the jolly green kind with orange spikes. Their friend, Stuart, is getting some highly technical advice from Anne Fay about dragon-leg engineering. As she attacks his humpbacked creation with a moulding tool, she mentions a colleague who's a geologist.

"Oh, yeah? That's what I want to be - a geologist," comes the offhand reply.

The museum's Chinese week will come to a colourful climax this weekend, with lion dancers and jugglers in action at 2 p.m. tomorrow and a concert of traditional Chinese music on Sunday at 3 p.m. The latter will, however, strike a somewhat poignant note, for Linda Wang, who was to have been one of the solo instrumentalists, was murdered last month in Bray, Co Wicklow. According to Dr Katherine Chan Mullen, of the Chinese Information Centre, Wang was the most skilful player of the 1,000-year-old two-stringed instrument known as the goo cheng among the Chinese community here, and a highly respected teacher.

"The goo cheng was played as a solo instrument for the emperors at the royal court," she says. "You may have seen it in the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. It sounds a little like a cello, but it's played flat on a table or a bamboo stand."

One of Wang's pupils will now perform in her place and will - along with Jodie Huan Huan on the er-hu, the folk instrument known as the Chinese violin, and a traditional choir made up of Chinese students - dedicate the concert to her memory. An extraordinary occasion, and another extraordinary chapter in the history of Collins Barracks.

The Museum Outdoors programme at Collins Barracks continues next week on a Spanish theme, with workshops on flamenco, a talk on the Spanish Armada and a performance of Tango Spell, a dance-drama choreographed by Laura Macias and performed by Pasodos Dance Company. Details from 01-6777444 or on the museum website at www.museum.ie