Museum of Country Life, National Museum in Turlough Park, Castlebar, Ireland
The National Museum of Ireland – Country Life stands at Turlough Park, 8 km northeast of Castlebar, County Mayo. Its exhibition building, opened in September 2001, is set into the slope of a hill above a pond beside the 1860s Turlough Park House. Displays on four floors cover the home, trades and crafts, communities, and work on land and water.
The mansion beside the museum was built in the 1860s for a wealthy family and reflects Victorian architecture. The modern museum building was added later to house the growing collection of Irish artifacts.
The museum displays how rural communities lived and worked through objects from kitchens, workshops, and homes. These items show the daily practices and skills that shaped life in the countryside for generations.
The museum is 8 km northeast of Castlebar near Turlough village, with its own parking, shop and café. It opens Sunday and Monday 1pm–5pm and Tuesday to Saturday 10am–5pm. Exhibitions are arranged thematically over four floors, and the ground floor of Turlough House is also open to visitors.
The Coggalbeg hoard, a Bronze Age gold collar and discs found in a bog near Strokestown in 1945, was kept in a pharmacy safe until thieves stole the safe in 2009; the gold objects were later recovered from a dumpster. The museum has displayed this hoard, an object whose survival owes as much to a rubbish skip as to archaeology.
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