Ireland's tasty housekeeping and interior design history

The silver collection is just one part of a focus on the domestic environment, but far from simply being a look at the past, the museum continues to collect new and evolving designs, a recent acquisition being a knife made by bladesmith Sam Gleeson.

“We try to collect objects of high calibre,” says Edith. “We’re also acquiring another knife from Caitlin Murphy. They’re important items showing the development of Irish culinary culture.”

For visitors, museums can sometimes be awkward places to plot a course through if they’re located in a repurposed building, but, architecturally, Dublin’s former Collins Barracks has its own design credentials and makes for an easy amble from gallery to gallery for lovers of all things interiors, taking in details of Irish domestic life. “We also have an exhibition on 21st-century Irish craft, furniture, metalwork, glassware and ceramics from contemporary makers and we’ll have rotating displays of contemporary craft in 2025,” says Edith.

Dónal Maguire, keeper of art and history, adds: “We have across all galleries a range of objects in use in a domestic setting, up to high-end design showing how people lived. There’s incredible history in items like spoons, tea caddies, chocolate pots, showing the wealth people had or didn’t have, right up to the 20th century.”

It’s an insight into how extravagantly some entertained in the past but as Dónal says: “It’s not just about the best and purest, it’s also about the everyday, showing the human need to create an environment. People fill their houses with objects to express their identity. It’s as important as expressing themselves with clothes.”

The curation of a series of spaces through time shows how rooms might have looked in the periods from the 17th century to the 19th century. Reconstructed Rooms: Four Centuries of Furnishings offers the visitor a flavour of this as does the 20th-century furniture gallery looking at Irish modernism to the present day, the arts and crafts movement, art nouveau and art deco.

A visit is also an opportunity to see one of the most important collections of domestic design by an Irish designer, more famous around the world than she was at home. “The Eileen Gray collection is a very important collection as she was one the most important interior designers and architects of the 20th century internationally,” says Dónal. “It tells her life story with some of the finest examples of her finished items, prototypes, tool boxes and lacquering materials.”

A recent coup for the museum has been the acquisition of work by the late Irish, London-based designer Tony O’Neill. If there’s a male Eileen Gray this is him. His personal collection of furniture pieces and prototypes adds another layer to Ireland’s design history and one to excite design lovers and design historians. But you’ll have to exercise a little patience.

“It’s an important acquisition for the museum, but we have to first of all conserve it and then get it on display as soon as possible,” says Dónal.

Other events scheduled in the meantime to satisfy design enthusiasts include a display of the work of one of our most famous glass artists. “Just Just before Christmas, we’re opening a small exhibition of Harry Clarke’s stained-glass windows,” says Dónal. 

“Some of the glass is from our own collection and some is on loan from the Crawford in Cork while it’s closed. It will be nice to see the glass in the darker months and it’s a chance to put more focus on our design.” It’s scheduled to open during the first week of December. See www.museum.ie.

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