Here’s Madam at the Collins Barracks, the National Museum of Ireland’s home for Decorative Arts and History.
I’d heard it was the best costume exhibit in Ireland. So, okay, maybe the name of the location shoulda been a giveaway. But it still was just a bit startling to walk through room after room of guns. Guns behind glass, guns in the hands of mannequins (in costume, I will concede), guns disabled and attached to cords so visitors can have a go with them. Of course that bit got a smile out of Himself Jr, who is a little museumed-out these days.
I get it. That’s the History part. Well, part of the History part, anyway. Even pacifist me has pointed out the bullet holes in the outer walls of the O’Connell Street Post Office to my kids.
Still, both Himself and I agreed it was a little tough to look at the bloodied undershirt that James Connolly was wearing when captured and the coat Michael Collins was wearing when he was ambushed and shot.
My great-grandmother left Dublin in 1901, more than a decade before the Easter Rising. She wanted nothing to do with Ireland after arriving in the US. My grandmother, wanting desperately to be Irish during the Kennedy years, collected Belleek.
I am not posting pictures of James Connolly’s shirt. I will however, point out that Belleek in a museum is just as…well, ugly, as it was on my grandmother’s shelves.
