Historic Castlebar Post Office plaque presented to National Museum

Historic Castlebar Post Office plaque presented to National Museum


Edwin McGreal

THE Office of Public Works have presented a historic plaque from the old Castlebar Post Office to the National Museum of Ireland - Country Life at Turlough Park, Castlebar.
The plaque originally adorned the entrance to the old post office at Mountain View, opposite Christ Church.  This post office building was built in 1903 and opened in 1904, and replaced an older building on the Mall beside the house in which the great soprano, Margaret Burke Sheridan was born.  Margaret’s father worked for the Royal Mail, who operated the Irish mail service at the time.
The plaque is cast iron and weighs some 100 kilograms (about 2 cwt), is less than a metre in height and about 60 centimetres in width and formally transferred from the ownership of the Office of Public Works (OPW) to the National Museum.
Interestingly if you look above the entrance to the old post office today, you will see the space between the words post and office.  That was the space occupied by the plaque but was removed around the time of the founding of the Irish Free State in 1922.  This was because it was seen as a symbol of British Rule, as it carried the monogram of King Edward VII.
It is a handsome piece of work, with ornamental scroll work around the edges, the date AD 1904, and the crown above the initials ER – Edwardus Rex, Latin for King Edward.  
And as a museum exhibit at the Museum of Country Life, the plaque is perfectly suited as the museum of Turlough Park chronicles the lives of ordinary people, according to the Museum’s Manager Keeper, Tony Candon.
“We acquire objects that relate to people’s lives all the time, but in this Post Office plaque we have an object that is full of history and symbolism.  It connects the lives of the ordinary people to one of the organs of state, especially the British State as it then was in the early years of the last century.  Its removal from its position over the entrance to the post office marked the break between the old United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the creation of the new Irish Free State.
“There is a further reason why we at Turlough Park are happy to have it.  The architect who designed the post office in Castlebar, John Howard Pentland, was, for two years, a working pupil of Thomas Newenham Deane, the architect who designed Turlough Park House.  We are grateful to the OPW for giving it to us, and we are also grateful to former Castlebar Town Councillor, Johnny Mee, for bringing it to out attention.”