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 these documents is now available to view in a new online exhibition. 

The exhibition is complemented by a series of three online 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. Referenced material is available here

 
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. A range of practical techniques were used to improve the stability and visual appearance of these historic documents while adhering to the Museum’s ethos of minimal intervention.

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. His MA thesis on the decline of the Dublin Cattle Market was published by Four Courts Press as part of Maynooth University’s Studies in Local History series. Declan has had peer-reviewed articles published in the Journal of Co-operative Organization and Management and the Irish Economic and Social History.