National Museum of Ireland-Country Life and Turlough Park House
The National Museum of Ireland-Country Life, located just off the N5 at Turlough, 8 km east of Castlebar in County Mayo, is now one of the main tourist attractions in the west of Ireland, and it is free. It was opened in September 2001 to house the Irish folklore collection, most of which was in storage until then. However, with a collection of over 50,000 items, and constantly growing with donations, only a fraction of it is on public display. Mayo County Council purchased Turlough Park House and estate for the state in 1991, and were successful in having the National Museum of Ireland locate its country life collection there, their only branch outside Dublin.
The Museum of Country Life is designed with modern exhibition galleries on four floors in the spectacular grounds of Turlough Park. Here you travel back in time and experience a vanished civilisation incorporating artefacts from rural Ireland, chiefly from about 1850 to the 1950s, with displays using archival video material and interactive screens. These include farming and fishing activities, the homes in which people dwelt, examples of furniture, dress and footwear, items relating to religion, education, emigration, politics, games, past-times, customs, festivals, as well as a wide variety of trades and crafts, like the blacksmith, tinsmith, thatcher, carpenter and cooper. The Education Room is fully equipped to offer a range of educational programmes for schools and groups.
Surrounded by landscaped parklands of 29 acres, beautiful gardens, a modern freestanding glasshouse, and an artificial lake (known as a turlough), visitors can also see Turlough Park House, which was extensively restored by the Office of Public Works. The house was built in 1865 by the Fitzgerald family, who received the estate under the Cromwellian settlement in the seventeenth century. Turlough House and adjoining courtyards were designed by Thomas Newenham Deane, who was also responsible for the Church of Ireland in Westport and the National Museum in Kildare Street, Dublin.
There is a 2.9m high sculpture by Ballintober-born artist, Brother Joseph McNally, in the grounds of the National Museum of Country Life. The Portal sculpture by Barry Linnane symbolises a link between past and present.
(www.museum.ie/en/intro/country-life)