New Temporary Exhibition Opening Friday 12th June
“If I knew you were coming I would have spread green rushes for you" was a traditional greeting to welcome a friend or relative who had not visited your home for a long time.
Straw, Hay & Rushes, a new temporary exhibition which opens on Thursday 11th June in the National Museum of Ireland - Country Life, Turlough Park, Castlebar, shows the great ingenuity of people in using everyday materials to make objects for use about the house and farm. The exhibition curator, Dr. Anne O’Dowd, believes the exhibition will also call to mind that other oft used phrase, "Necessity is the mother of invention", a phrase which may have particular resonance for us all in today’s difficult economic climate.
These everyday materials were as basic as straw, hay and rushes all of which were available for free in the landscape around us. When the objects in the exhibition were being made observers rather patronisingly described the way of life of the practitioners as "subsistence." The ingenious use of materials to make a very large range of objects from armchairs to children’s toys and riding saddles to straw ropes shows how people traditionally made the most of materials and skills available to them.
An older style display method is being used in this exhibition. A cabinet of curiosities is packed with saddles, straddles, chairs, stools, straw hats, hens’ nests, tethers, fetters and spancels, baskets, beehives, mats, mattresses, horse and donkey collars, bridles and pack panels. Visitors will be able to experience what it was like to lie on a straw mattress, to sit on a straw armchair and to examine a straw bale wall. In addition, visitors will see a modern copy of a complete straw outfit which was donated to the National Museum in 1903 and go up close and personal with the original straw man and Dorothy’s friend…. the Scarecrow himself.
Politicians, planners, economists, green practitioners and responsible citizens regularly have talked about sustainability over the past number of years and it is a concept which has more relevance today than ever before.
A number of education activities will also take place to complement the exhibition which will run until early 2010.