Past, present and future collide for Tyrrellspass children at the National Museum

The children of Tyrrellspass, Westmeath recently paid a visit to the National Museum to see the bog bodies and bog antiquities. On the excursion they got to meet Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage Christopher O'Sullivan.

The visit was coordinated by Tóchar Stories. Tóchar Stories is a community storytelling project under the Tóchar Midlands Wetlands Restoration initiative in Ireland. It uses creative and collaborative storytelling to explore and document people's experiences and connections to bogs and wetlands.

Here Helen Shaw, Tóchar Stories curator, gives a flavour of the day out enjoyed by the Tyrrellspass pupils.

“Is this place always free?” one of the children whispered when we were inside the National Museum, Kildare Street, and wandering through the exhibitions of the treasures found in Ireland’s boglands. Their guide, the National Museum’s educator, Matthew Lester answered: "it's free because everything here belongs to the public, we take care of it on your behalf”.

The visit to the National Museum was the fulfilment of a wish we made back in April when we first met the children with Eugene Dunbar, the community leader of ETHOS (Everything Tyrrellspass Has On Show) and Eugene showed them images from the museum’s bog collection.

The children, then in 4th Class, were starting our first bog art project with artist mentor Annie Holland and were learning about the nature and biodiversity of the local Cloncrow Bog. When Eugene showed them an image of the bog bodies he mentioned Old Croghan Man, the two thousand year old remains of a man, sacrificed in Iron Age Ireland. One of the pupils, Amber Flanagan, put her hand up and said she was from Croghan and knew the story well. When we finished the art project, installed the children’s artwork at the entrance to the bog and printed postcards and badges of the children’s art, we chatted with Amber about it. From there we began thinking of bringing the class to the National Museum to share not just the story of the bog bodies, but the incredibly diverse national collection of antiquities found in the Irish bogs. In the Museum there’s everything from bog butter ( the children were fascinated by the idea of how it might taste) to jewellery, early Christian chalice and full customs.

On Wednesday, November 12th, the children, now in 5th Class, finally got the chance to do just that along with Eugene and their 4th Class teacher Laura Lynch.

Before the visit Eugene had spent time with the children in class sharing the history of the archaeological finds, particularly relating to Westmeath and the Midlands, so they had both a timeline from Stone Age, to Iron and Bronze Ages, and an understanding of Mesolithic and Neolithic societies. The bog bodies research project is in the Museum’s ‘Kinship and Sacrifice’ - where three of the Museum’s bog bodies are preserved. The detailed research project followed the discovery of the two Iron Age bog bodies at Croghan, Co. Offaly and Clonycavan, Co. Meath, with both remains dated to between 400 BC and 200 BC.

Matthew encouraged Amber to tell the story, or how we have pieced together the story. He also explained how science has allowed us to know some facts, like the last meal eaten by Croghan man (wheat and buttermilk) and that he was young, in his twenties, quite tall,as much as 6 foot, and potentially of high rank - based on his hands.

The children were mindful that Croghan Man and the other bodies had once been, like them, alive and breathing - they were curious about those lives but also quietly asked questions about how the bog preserved the bogs so well - and how the Museum stopped the bodies from disintegrating once they were discovered. Matthew, fittingly given it was also Science Week, explains they first treated the waterlogged remains with polyethylene glycol (PEG) to replace the water in the tissue. The treated bodies are then freeze-dried under vacuum to remove the PEG and any remaining water, preventing decomposition. This helps hold the body's shape and allows the museum experts to research and study.

By lunchtime the children were outside on the steps enjoying a break and watching the comings and going in Dáil Eireann next door. If their minds were full of Iron Age politics and why Croghan Man was sacrificed they then had a surprise visit and a chance to find out about contemporary politics when the Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Christopher O’Sullivan popped over to chat with them.

Minister O’Sullivan has special responsibility for Nature, Heritage and Biodiversity and by chance he had had the opportunity to visit Cloncrow Bog in the Summer and had seen the bog restoration work there and the children’s artwork at the entrance to it.

For a half hour he offered the children the chance to find out about his job and what he is doing for nature and answered all the children's questions including what his favourite ( enhancing national parks) and least favourite ( attending funerals - always sad) parts of the job are. “What you’ve been doing in your bog is really important, it’s about the future, your future, keep it up”, he encouraged them and said if they didn’t fancy becoming a politician like him then to think about becoming ecologists ‘we’re going to need more and more of them”.

When their impromptu briefing was over the children gifted the Minister a selection of their postcard artworks and asked him to send them out into the world from his office. He asked if they had a Christmas card series. Not yet, one replied, but that’s an idea!

The National Museum Kildare Street (Archaeology) is open Tuesday - Friday 9am-5pm and from 1pm-5pm on Sunday and Monday. And yes it is always free. You can request group guided tours via the Museum - but do try and do it well in advance.