This major illustrated study investigates farmhouse and cabin furniture from all over the island of Ireland. It discusses the origins and evolution of useful objects, what materials were used and why, and how furniture made for small spaces, often with renewable elements, was innate and expected. Encompassing three centuries, it illuminates a way of life that has almost vanished. It contributes as much to our knowledge of Ireland’s cultural history as to its history of furniture. Many of the author's fieldwork photographs from the late 1980s, have been digitised and will now be published for the first time.
The book looks at influences such as traditional architecture, shortage of timber, why and how furniture was painted, and the characteristics of designs made by a range of furniture makers. The incorporation of natural materials such as bog oak, turf, driftwood, straw, recycled tyres or packing cases is viewed in terms of use, and durability. Chapters individually examine stools, chairs and then settles in all their ingenious and multi-purpose forms. How dressers were authentically arranged, with displays varying minutely according to time and place, reveal how some had indoor coops to encourage hens to lay through winter. Some people ate communally or slept in outshot beds, in the coldest north-west, all this is illustrated through art as well as surviving objects.
Dr Claudia Kinmonth is an art and design historian, who worked at London’s V&A and Sir John Soane’s Museum, before moving to Cork. Her interest in the inspiration of historical sustainability spurs her interdisciplinary research. Currently Research Curator (Domestic Life) at the Ulster Folk Museum, she is a Board Member of The National Museum of Ireland.
The book looks at influences such as traditional architecture, shortage of timber, why and how furniture was painted, and the characteristics of designs made by a range of furniture makers. The incorporation of natural materials such as bog oak, turf, driftwood, straw, recycled tyres or packing cases is viewed in terms of use, and durability. Chapters individually examine stools, chairs and then settles in all their ingenious and multi-purpose forms. How dressers were authentically arranged, with displays varying minutely according to time and place, reveal how some had indoor coops to encourage hens to lay through winter. Some people ate communally or slept in outshot beds, in the coldest north-west, all this is illustrated through art as well as surviving objects.
Dr Claudia Kinmonth is an art and design historian, who worked at London’s V&A and Sir John Soane’s Museum, before moving to Cork. Her interest in the inspiration of historical sustainability spurs her interdisciplinary research. Currently Research Curator (Domestic Life) at the Ulster Folk Museum, she is a Board Member of The National Museum of Ireland.