Siblings help to make the family Christmas cake and pudding, Dublin 2023
“Essential Christmas facts from a 9 year old. She informed us that 🥕 are not good for reindeers digestion, while all Santa’s reindeers must be female as males lose their antlers in winter and females lose theirs in the summer.“
Hello!
Welcome to the Community Engagement programme at the Museum of Childhood Ireland, we’re thrilled you stopped by.
Here you will find stories, memories and interviews shared by our friends and followers about all things childhood, and growing up in Ireland and amongst the diaspora.
We at the Museum feel that the community should be at the heart of everything that we do – we want to create a space that reflects the shared (and varied) lived experience of everyone connected to our Emerald Isle – no matter where you are from or where you are now.
We would love to hear from you, for stories long and short, for memories past and present, adults and children alike!
At intervals, we will run more themed programming – such as Hallowe’en in October or Christmas in December – but this is just a guide. We want to hear and share your stories of anything you can think of – we’re excited to be here, and we’re excited to be hearing!
You can send us your stories, memories, anecdotes, pictures, thoughts or videos at any time – on our Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, or by email to cbrowne@museumofchildhood.ie.
Want to share your story but remain anonymous too? That is more than okay! We’re just here to create a communal space where we can all talk about the wonderful topic that is childhood.
We look forward to hearing from you!
Diaspora Engagement
“it is time to imagine how they stood there, what they stood with, that their possessions may become our power”
– Eavan Boland, The Emigrant Irish.
How have the Irish diaspora adapted and assimilated? Where have new traditions developed by way of cultural translation? And where have things remained and been retained?
The story of the island of Ireland, from the perspective of its children, can’t be told without considering the story of emigration. It has shaped our story in waves, particularly since the ‘Great Hunger’ famine, and continues to be felt and sustained, today.
With so much of Irish tourism and citizenship focused around the idea of coming home, or of a warm Irish welcome, we’d like to create a space for Irish Diaspora childhood history.
The Museum of Childhood Ireland embraces the child’s experience of emigration, ‘Irishness’ abroad, and how immigration was and is felt for all those who have made Ireland their home. As we raise awareness of the museum and the search for the museum’s permanent home, we invite the Irish diaspora community to engage with us, by sharing their stories and the presence of our museum in their countries.
The museum will be an inter-generational and hybrid model which allows for both a child friendly, interactive space for play and discovery, and reflective spaces that tell the diverse history and stories of childhood.
Begun in 2017/18, It is the first Museum of Childhood o its kind, for the island of Ireland.
We are raising the profile of the museum, it’s extensive collections and funding needs, as it prepares for its permanent home.
Contact Majella McAllister: mmcallister@museumofchildhood.ie
Contact Chloe Browne: cbrowne@museumofchildhood.ie
Ballymaloe Cookery School, Christmas cake and pudding recipes
https://letters.cookingisfun.ie/2011/11/26/christmas-cakes/
What foods did you cook?
Corpus Christi procession, Kerry, Ireland, 1952. Henri Cartier-Bresson. Do you remember these processions?
Ann Kearns, Hazelwood Park, Artane, Feile Robert Emmet, Walkinstown. Evening Press 1981
Betty Henry, age 5 1/2 at A.O.H Hall, Sandymount. The Irish Press, Nov 3rd, 1933
Essie Dignam, George’s St., Dublin, dancing competition. The Freeman’s Journal 1921
Did you learn Irish dancing?
Cashel. The Sunday Independant 1928
Where did you visit on days out or on holiday?
Gerard Delaney, age 6 and Peter Murray in Portlaoise. The Irish Independant 1965
What games did you play?
Ray Esten and friends, Mourne Rd.school communion photo, 1980s
Did you make your First Communion? Where? When?
John Dermody, age 7 and his donkey ‘Noddy Big Ears’ at Moyle Park College Autumn Fair. Evening Herald, Clondalkin 1973
A group of kids gathered together, Massachusetts 1904
Collyhurst cowboy, Manchester, January 1968, by Dennis Hussey
Young girls on upper Sean MacDermott Street, Dublin, 1970s
Children queue for icecream at a Mr Whippy van, Hammond, Preston UK 1962
Máire O’Neill and Nancy Bailey, Myra Feis, Dublin, 1936
Oldcastle, Co Meath, 1948
Thomas O’Connell, Bishop Street and William Ryan, Thomand-gate, Limerick, 1935
The Monica McWeeney (Whelan) Collection is a set of photographs depicting Dublin in the years from 1921-1922. An interesting aspect of the collection is how it captures a small insight into the experiences of children at the time. Here children are seen climbing on an armoured car and watching the Custom House as the fire takes hold. https://www.ria.ie/collections/photograph-collections/mcweeney-collection/