Muckross wins heritage education award
Each year, 70,000 people visit the attraction where everyday life on farms in the 1930’s and ’40’s is re-enacted, using live animals and poultry, and where farm tasks are undertaken in the style of the period.
The three farms, in operation since 1993, are part of the Muckross House and Gardens complex which is visited by 800,000 people annually and is among the top five visitor attractions nationally.
The Sandford awards are given by the Heritage Education Trust, in Britain, and this recognition for Muckross Farms is the first to any institution outside the UK. The awards promote excellence in educational services in historic houses, castles, museums and such institutions
“This is a fantastic achievement which results from a totally independent assessment by an outside body. The achievement is even more significant in that this is a non-profit making venture and the trustees of Muckross House are a voluntary body,” said Muckross House manager Pat Dawson.
“It’s about the highest recognition we can get for the quality of education delivered here and will be a great boost to our facilities,” he added.
The award was for Féile Chultúir Chiarraí, an annual, week-long event run with Kerry County Council and attended by 600 primary school children.
One hundred and twenty children visit the farms each day, taking part in bilingual workshops and actively assisting farm staff and mná tí (women of the house) in chores such as baking over an open turf fire, butter making, tacking a horse and playing Irish music with Cork artist Jimmy Crowley.
The mná tí, some of whom grew up in such households and work in the three traditional farmhouses.
“These interpreters (mná tí) were excellent, both in the knowledge they imparted and in the way in which they related to the children and had them undertake traditional tasks,” said the judges’ citation.
An active learning environment is created and the programme is designed in consultation with teachers who work closely with farms manager, Toddy Doyle, and Patricia O’Hare, research and education officer at Muckross.
“Great thought and planning has gone into making the workshops appropriate, educational and certainly entertaining, so that any child would come away with a great insight into the way his ancestors lived,” the judges concluded.
They also noted the use of the internet on the farms. Photographs taken of groups of children during the day are placed on the Muckross House website (www.muckross-house.ie) each evening.
