A steamer trunk's story in Secret Kloset

Sometimes a piece of memorabilia will come startlingly to life when the back-story is recalled, and that's the case in Shirley Kavanagh Hallion's Secret Kloset entry for the Kilcullen 700/National Heritage Week Competition, writes Brian Byrne.

One of the pieces in the window is what was known as a 'steamer trunk', a large piece of luggage which would make a Ryanair bag-drop agent blanch if it were presented at check-in today. "It was used by my great-aunt Bridie when she sailed to America with Cunard in the early 1900s," Shirley says. "She never came back to live here, but did come on visits, so the trunk must have come back to Ireland on one of those."

That great-aunt was Bridie Murphy from Kilgowan, and she spent her life in an area north of New York city after marrying in America. "And she lived to 104," Shirley told the Diary yesterday.

There's also a Singer sewing machine in the display, which reflects another piece of family history, that Shirley's great-grandmother — another native of this area — was the first agent for Singer machines in Ireland.

A photograph of boys playing with whipping tops shows some of the pastimes of the past, while a postcard photo of Alexandra of Denmark, Queen Consort to King Edward VII, sits well with an old book of which the opening chapter is titled 'Old Clothes—Old Glory'.

The enamelled advertising signs for corsetry are also worth perusing in the context of the very modern fashions of the Secret Kloset.

Heritage Week 2019 starts this weekend, and a number of businesses and organisations have signed up to provide a display for the competition, the prizes for which are sponsored by Bank of Ireland, Kilcullen. The links below are to some of the other entries so far covered on the Diary.

Music, games and books in Woodbine's Heritage Week window.

More beautiful memory pieces in Sharon's Perfect Image. 

Ger's Fruit and Veg brings memories back. 

Julie's tableau of 50s home memory. 

Photographs use Policy — Privacy Policy