This Moses basket was purchased in 1956 from the Richmond National Institution for the Industrious Blind, in O’Connell Street. The basket was bought by May and Brendan Guilfoyle for the birth of their first child. May and Brendan married in October 1955.
They lived in Dun Laoghaire, first in a flat in Tivoli Terrace East, and subsequently in a house in Crosthwaite Park which the family occupied for over sixty years. They had eight children. Sadly Brendan died in 1975 at the young age of forty-eight, but his wife May lived until 2019, when she died aged ninety-two. All eight of the Guilfoyle children slept in the Moses basket (Eithne, Ronan, Conor, Bairbre, Fiona, Maeve, Brendan, and Darragh). May and Brendan had fifteen grandchildren, and twelve of them also slept in this basket ( the other three grandchildren were born in North America). The basket originally had a bamboo and wicker stand – but this is long gone.
When the first grandchild Laura arrived in 1984 a new stand was made for it by Blindcraft the successors of the Richmond National Institution for the Industrious Blind. This stand has also gone, but the original Moses basket remains.
Eithne Guilfoyle
October 2020
Donated to the Museum of Childhood Ireland.
Eithne and Rusty. Back Garden, Tivoli Terrace Dun Laoghaire, 1957
The Moses Basket and Receipt.
Brendan and May Guilfoyle, Church of the Holy Family, Aughrim Street, Dublin, Oct. 4, 1955.
The Guilfoyle Children. Dun Laoghaire, 1969.
Kneeling in the back Row: Bairbre, Fiona
Front Row: Ronan, Brendan, Maeve, Conor, Eithne, Darragh (baby)
May Guilfoyle with 14 of her grandchildren. Coolanowle Country House, Co.Laoise, 2016.
Back row: Christopher Guilfoyle, Jack Keegan, Claire Taylor, Reese Guilfoyle, Bey Guilfoyle, Hazel Guilfoyle, Matthew Taylor, Harry Taylor, Oisin Keegan, Luca Guilfoyle, Sinead Keegan
Front row: Laura Guilfoyle Magalhaes, May Guilfoyle, Cian Chartier, Kate Guilfoy
