Was in Mayo at the weekend - one of my favourite counties in Ireland: lakes, monuntains, the sea = beautiful. Called in to Turlough Park, the museum of country life. The main exhibition is exactly as it was a few years ago, and while its a fantastic, interesting, informative display, I had no desire to walk around it again. But more on this later.
In a side room, there was a display of tourism posters: "Come Back to Erin". There were some beautiful illustrations by Paul Henry (unfortunately they weren't for sale, they were 5 posters available for purchase). The posters had images of mountains, lakes, horse and carts, aran jumpers, peak caps and all the other cliches that we wonder how they spread around the world! We were responsible - our own tourism industry!
Also on display were about 25 benches designed by students from Letterfrack furntiture college. I think that they were all given a particular spot as part of the brief. Some of the benches were very suited to their position, some were beautifully made - material or workmanship, some were very comfortable. And it gave people a reason for strolling around and checking out all corners of the museum, especially if like me, they'd been there before and as I said above weren't keen on checking out the exhibition again. Their were catalogues available at reception to refer to as you walked around but they had to be returned and they weren't for sale in the shop.
The bench that stunned me most was made from upturned reeds, designed by Eric O'Donnell. It was warm to sit on and very comfortable. Such a clever, innovative use of materials. I checked out the website he has with a colleague: http://www.designonion.net/. It has a "commission" page with examples of furniture given as wedding presents - what a lovely idea, though probably more expensive than the wedding presents I've given in the past!
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