Hi everyone
The Museum of Country Life, located a couple of miles outside Castlebar on the grounds of a (modest) country house estate, is designed to record/showcase traditional rural life and is part of the National Museum of Ireland network and is closely affiliated to the Museum of Decorative Arts at Collins Barracks.
I like my heritage and am a fan of museums and as a culchie with a farming background, I was interested in this venture. But I have a couple of gripes;
Firstly, the museum is closed on Mondays. Every Monday. Including Bank Holiday Monday. This is clearly daft. It's the same at Collins Barracks. I complained about this when I first visited (3 years ago?, I think) but it hasn't changed. So beware anyone thinking of visiting these museums. When I complained I was told that it was a "union thing" but maybe it is but surely a different day of the week could be swopped instead of a Monday. Even a Friday wouldn't be so crazy. Whoever heard of a tourist attraction on a major holiday route closed on the June Bank Holiday weeekend?! Why does the government (and us) tolerate this kind of silliness?
The second problem I have is a much more fundamental issue to me and I'd be interested to know if any other visitors noticed this. The country house in the grounds has been restored and the (fairly empty) rooms are roped off so that visitors can look in. No problems there; we've seen landlords' houses restored with varying degrees of success by the dozen around where I live. The actual museum is located to the rear of this house and is underground in what appeared to my novice eye like a concrete bunker. I couldn't believe that the people with their turf cutters, bawneen jackets, St Brigid's crosses and dressers were relegated to servants' quarters, out of sight of the "big house". I couldn't believe my eyes at the time and (however foolishly/sentamentally) felt it was a horrible insult to "my people" and mentioned it to a curator but didn't get any safisfactory answer. I think he said something about preserving the look of the estate but when I asked why they couldn't have put the artefacts of the locals into the rooms of the big house (or anything but a bunker) there was no real answer.
I know this is a fairly obscure rant but it has been bugging me for ages and every time I hear the ad on the radio, it starts my blood boiling again.
Rebecca