Electric Irish Homes: Rural Electrification, Domestic Products and Irish Women in the 1950s and 1960s

Coming to the end of a very busy year, we are delighted to have just published the first journal article based on the project research material. ‘Made in Ireland?’ is part of Volume 8 of Writing Visual Culture, which focuses…

  I’m delighted to be able to announce the publication of Powering the Nation: Images of the Shannon Scheme and Electricity in Ireland. This book is based on my research on an earlier time period of electricity in Ireland, that…

Continuing on with my mission to survey the electrical appliances surviving in Irish museum collections, I recently visited the Irish Agricultural Museum in Wexford. Now, while an agricultural museum is probably not the first place you would think of when…

Part of the research for this project focuses on a special category of ESB staff, that of the electrical demonstrators. Mostly young women with domestic science or catering training, they played two roles within the organisation – doing public demonstrations and home…

One of my first visits to object collections holding material about 1950s and 1960s domestic electrical products was to the Geffrye Museum, in Shoreditch in London. The Geffrye Museum is a museum of the home, and is probably best known…

The events of Kingston Research Week were intended to highlight the different forms of research being carried on within the University, and the Kingston School of Art participation included a series of research talks and an exhibition in the Platform…

The second round of oral history interviews were carried out by Geraldine O’Connor from Clones ICA. These included members of both Clones and Aghabog ICA guilds, as well as some friends and relatives. The main rural electrification covering Clones town…

An early Christmas present arrived today from Castlebar – a package with a recorder full of interviews from the Castlebar ICA guild members. The interviews were carried out by Mary and Maura, who talked to nine of their fellow guild…

  I was delighted to give a paper on my research at Mise Éire? Shaping a Nation through Design, a conference run in partnership between the National Museum of Ireland and the Design and Crafts Council of Ireland, not least because…

Welcome to the web presence of the Electric Irish Homes research project. This is an AHRC-funded design history research project in partnership with the National Museum of Ireland, which will investigate the impact of rural electrification on rural Irish women…