The Murray Documents - Online exhibition and talk

In 2023, the National Museum of Ireland acquired a donation of 40 documents belonging to the Murray family that lived in rural County Sligo.

The well-preserved documents span 150 years from the early nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century and give a snapshot of the lives of a typical farming family.

As part of the Museum's Heritage Week 2024 programme, a selection of those documents will be available to view as a new online exhibition, complimented by a series of three online talks, from 1pm on Thursday, August 22. (Please note, these are pre-recorded talks)

Talk 1 - The Murray Documents
Noel Campbell, curator in the National Museum of Ireland - Country Life with responsibility for the Irish Folklife agriculture collection, highlights a selection of the Murray documents he has researched and recorded.

Talk 2 - Conserving the Murray Documents
Ellen Mc Keever is the National Museum of Ireland’s paper conservator. Ellen will discuss the treatment of the Murray documents acquisition by the National Museum of Ireland’s conservation department in preparation for photography.

Talk 3 - The Birth of Ireland’s Beef Processing Industry 1950-60
Dr Declan O’Brien is a historian and journalist who works as a news correspondent with the Irish Farmers Journal. He completed a PhD in modern history at Mary Immaculate College, Limerick in 2021, with his doctoral thesis exploring the development of Ireland’s beef processing industry between 1950 and 1986.