By Martin Hintz

What has 360 windows, a secret door and a collection of handmade agricultural artifacts dating back more than a century.

The answer is easily obvious when driving down the long, winding lane leading to the Museum of Country Life in Turlough Park, Castlebar. The Co. Mayo facility is the luxurious (for its day) ancestral home of the Fitzgeralds. The place had gone to seed by the 1970s and was saved from total wrack and ruin in the early 1990s by the county. 

The National Museum system took over the extensive property and the High Victorian Gothic style property and turned it into a fabulous showcase for rural Ireland. The museum, the first of the national museum branches to be located outside Dublin, opened in 2001. It took five years of construction and refurbishment, to the tune of Euro 19 million, before the museum was ready to for unveiling. 

Since then, more than 310,000 visitors have found their way to the place which is just off the N5, four miles east of Castlebar. Sixty percent of the guests are Irish, with 5% being youngsters on study tours. 

The other jewels in the national museum chain include the Museum of Archaeology and History on Kildare Street in Dublin; the Museum of Decorative Arts and History, Collins Barracks, Dublin; and the Museum of Natural History on Merrion Street, also in Dublin. It was considered appropriate to have exhibitions showcasing the lives of ordinary rural people in a rural setting, affirmed Bernie Byron, marketing director. The displays cover the era of 1850 to 1950. 

The number of windows in the Big House showed how well-off the Fitzgerald family was in the 1860s when the home was constructed, said Byron. Since windows were taxed back then, the large amount of glass meant something...considering that most of the family’s peasant neighbors used their half-door to let in the light, instead of windows, to their cottage interiors.

A secret door in the library allowed the master of the house to listen in on his tenants conversing while they waited in an anteroom for an audience. May 1 was usually the day when rent was due and so many of the peasants personally visited the house, seeking a word with the landowner in addition to dropping off their payments. 

Aside from that quirk of eavesdropping on their tenants, Byron asserted that the Fitzgeralds were "good landlords." They were lucky to keep their house intact during the Irish rebellion when about 200 other manors were destroyed. The family originated in Leinster, gaining title to the land through a royal charter.

The main exhibition hall is a four-story curved, stone-clad building which forms an end to some terraced gardens leading to an artificial lake. The galleries are in the back of the main house, which now houses the archives of the Irish Farmers’ Association and a large library filled with historical documents. The glistening new 19,375 square feet (1,800 square meters) exhibit hall stands in stark contrast to the dark red stone of the older structure. 

The gallery won a Royal Institute in Ireland regional award for its design. In 2002, it won the Museum of the Year award from the Irish Heritage Foundation. 

Off to the east, the Turlough cemetery round tower stands silent sentinel on the hills that were once owned by the Fitzgerald clan. From those thousands of acres previously managed by the family and its overseers, only 30 acres remain part of the museum property. But those acres are a delightful expanse of lawn and flower-filled gardens that provide a marvelous natural frame around the buildings. The Norman-Irish Fitzgeralds probably threw a heck of a lawn party when they wanted to socialize.

The exhibitions emphasize the continuity of tradition, said Byron, pointing out how the implements and crafts showcased in the museum evolved over time. There are three major components of the displays, with the first highlighting folklife, the second concentrating on the Famine, land wars and Home Rule disputes of the late 19th century and how they were resolved in an independent Ireland. The third section is devoted to Ireland’s geography and natural environment.

A stroll through the museum can take upwards of two-and-a-half hours, depending on how concentrated a visitor is in learning about the "good old days." Those days, of course, meant hours of back-breaking toil in often harsh conditions. The romanticism of Irish ballads usually paint a more colorful picture of what life was like. Subsequently, a visit to the Country Life Museum is certainly an eye-opener for anyone weaned on pub songs. 

Perhaps captivated by those verses, however, many Germans, French and English newcomers have recently moved to Ireland to farm. Usually they emphasize more organic growing methods, according to museum officials. The government has long been encouraging its native Irish to update their farming techniques to adapt to the influx of competition. 

Dubliner Paul Doyle, manager and self-described "keeper of the museum," 
is from the south side of the Liffey...the "good side," he laughed. Doyle spent 30 years in the museum’s art division and had been a curator of armor and armaments before moving over to the Country Life museum. 

His staff consists of 25 fulltime and four part-time employees. One of the workers is Angela Riedel, from Fenton, Mich., who has worked for the national museum system for the past six years. She was a graduate in art history, studying at Michigan State University from 1994 to 1997

Four curators are in charge of various specialties: agricultural and farming equipment; traditions/home life; furniture; and clothing. Currently, about 1,600 objects are displayed out of a total collection of 14,000 artifacts ranging from old ice boxes to straw St. Brigid’s crosses. Material is still being received, Doyle asserted proudly. The library also contains more than 2,000 books, 1,200 journals, 600 boxes of writings, 35,000 photo images and 1,000 prints, plus architectural drawings, survey maps and a video collection. Researchers and scholars regularly use this treasure trove.

These "ordinary" things of life show how the people were bound to the land, perhaps poor in financial resources but rich in creativity and knowledge of the world around them, said Byron. The displays avoid sentimentality. The personal energy of the man or woman who made these tools demonstrates how they could take the raw things of the world and make something useful for their lives, she said.

"They were creative and self-supporting, making something that would be durable. They really didn’t have a disposable economy in those days," Bryon added.

The exhibits were designed by Anne Scroope Design Ltd., intending to introduce visitors to the subject and then draw them through the exhibit. There are few formal glassed-in case around artifacts. Guests can get up close and almost-personal to see the displays, thereby getting a better sense of how the items were made -- whether a fishing net, rake or other device. Blue Sky Design of Toronto helped with the interpretation of the exhibits.

In addition to the displays, the museum has an extensive program of education and outreach. Talks, workshops, demonstrations and traveling displays are part of the mission at the facility. Last summer, in 2003, guests could watch craftworkers build a house in the old way, with its oak framing, dry stone walling and plastering. 

Also on site is a gift shop, cafe and an audio-visual room. The museum is open year-round from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Tuesday-Saturday, and 2 to 5 p.m., Sunday. It is closed Monday and bank holidays. Admission is free. For more details, check the museum’s website at www.museum.ie or call 094-90-31773. The gallery is wheel-chair accessible.