New exhibit ‘Housing for the People’ goes on display at Mayo museum

A new temporary exhibit created in collaboration with community groups and inspired by the nineteenth century Land League movement has gone on display at the National Museum of Ireland - Country Life, Turlough Park, Castlebar.

‘Housing for the People’ is a contemporary banner designed by artists Caleb Daly and Luke Ryan in collaboration with Anthony Haughey and Ballina Textiles Group. 

It was created as part of Anthony Haughey’s collaborative and socially engaged residency at the National Museum of Ireland for the Decade of Centenaries programme. 

It was inspired by a Land League banner from Cullen, Co. Tipperary, which is on permanent display in the National Museum of Ireland - Country Life. 

Mr Haughey has worked with more than 500 participants from communities across Ireland during the course of his residency from 2021 to 2024. 

‘Housing for the People’ is one of the outputs of that residency, along with the major new exhibition, ‘we make our own histories’ which runs until June 2024 at the National Museum of Ireland - Decorative Arts and History, in Dublin.

The ‘Housing for the People’ banner at Turlough Park features a central image of Eugène Delacroix’s La Liberté Guidant le People (1830), an artwork synonymous with justice for all marginalised people. 

It also features a portrait of Michael Davitt, the co-founder of the National Irish Land League from Straide in Mayo, and a portrait of social activist and advocate for homeless people, Fr Peter McVerry. 

“This banner represents a historical continuum of more than a century of struggle against inequality in Ireland,” said Mr Haughey. 

“It continues a long tradition of activist banner-making, designed to be carried at political rallies and demonstrations. The artwork is part of a larger body of work I co-created with communities through a series of workshops with hundreds of individuals and engagement with diverse audiences across the four sites of the National Museum of Ireland,” he added.

Welcoming the unveiling of the new artwork, Clodagh Doyle, Keeper of the Irish Folklife Collection at the National Museum of Ireland - Country Life said: “It has been exciting to see how Anthony engaged with so many different communities and individuals and with the Collections of the National Museum of Ireland and how they relate to the Decade of Centenaries. 

She concluded: “The resulting artworks and installations, including this ‘Housing for the People’ banner, offer us new ways in which to consider our Collections through contemporary themes and understandings – reinterpreting objects in the context of our experiences today.”

‘Housing for the People’ is on display now on Level B of the exhibition galleries at the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life. 

Find out more on the museum's website.