Author of books with Yale University Press & of 'Irish Country Furniture and Furnishings 1700-2000' @corkup.bsky.social ... Board Member @nmireland.bsky.social ... @ria.ie ... green optimist
Claudia Kinmonth MRIA FSA
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& on the subject of resourcefulness when I photographed this built-in press I found pencil-sized holes inside the panels: trademark of Naval Shipworm activity, so boards salvaged from the sea often resurfaced as vernacular furniture. This interior's sadly long gone, early oilcloth on the stairs too.
Sustainable post on its way. This could see a rural revival the way things are going with fossil fuels!
This is brilliant, it'd be great to have them rolled out in Irish urban areas!
People used protective marks by doors, windows & hearth openings, with symbols like Hexfoils or Daisywheels or the Sawtooth star motif, seen in this Maltese wrought iron balcony & fan light (& lozenge shapes & serpents). Hexfoils were common in Spain & Italy as well as GB & of course Ireland.
Here's another lovely example of 'natural knee' furniture, but cleverly using most of a tree for an Inishmaan 'thistle' to dry children's clothes by a fire in my latest book @corkup.bsky.social Irish Country furniture & furnishings 1700-2000 (2020) S. Coleman's sketch for IFC @duchas-ie.bsky.social
Fascinating to observe various protective hexfoil motifs in the Grand Marshall Palace's Armoury, in Valetta, Malta. Carefully detailed on a c.1700 flintlock gun stock & also, less meticulous yet obvious, repeatedly on gilt copper c.1550 Ottoman armour and shields.
Butter packed & sold in 56lb flat packed pine boxes had tapered bases & lids c.1880s-1970s. @buttermuseum.bsky.social Imaginatively repurposed with textile covers & comfy lidded seats, a woven rush 1 is uniquely good & the skillfully woven basket matches! Have you got one too? @corkup.bsky.social
Watching some of our adorable swallows return this week reminds me of my dear late mother who unfailingly noted the dates they came & went, left her shed door open for them & knew about all the other Irish migrant & native birds too...
HEGSETH CONDEMNS RARE WHALE SPECIES TO EXTINCTION
I have a passion for the whales of this planet planet and saving them. It makes me sick to my stomach to read this. I’ve met many whales over the years - they’re truly extraordinary creatures. www.vox.com/climate/4844...
The same tiny Irish coastal home has ceiling boards frugally rescued from the sea. Deep pencil-sized holes are from Toredo or Shipworm which only burrows in wood immersed in seawater. So this timber was cut after salvage exposing the holes & it's rare to see it despite centuries of paint.
Just 51 of these whales are left on Earth. Trump officials may have just doomed them.
Postman at Diffwys farm, west Wales, 1955, photo by Geoff Charles. It took David Lewis Jones nine hours to complete his round in remote mountain areas between Tregaron and Abergwesn, though he only delivered to eight houses (People’s Collection Wales).
Brian Groom
A short youtube video about it:
youtube.com/shorts/2ikEs...
