Tipperary Heartlands: Cormackstown Heritage Centre takes you on a trip through time!

The centre came into being while I was doing my job as a driver for a veterinary company back in the 1980s and 1990s. My job was to deliver animal medicine and veterinary equipment to creameries, vets, chemists, co-ops and other places.

At this time many of the old creameries around the country were falling into disrepair, so I saw an opportunity to save some of the old items that had been used in butter production in the past. This was the start of my collection.

Then I began to collect nearly everything connected to our heritage. This included the old tools connected to all the old trades of long ago such as the blacksmith, carpenter, wheelwright, thatcher and cobbler.

Not having a building to house my collection was my next problem. Not having the funds at the time to do it myself I approached Tipperary Leader for funding and thankfully they gave me sufficient funding to get me started.

Then with the help of family and friends we built The Cormackstown Heritage Centre. The collection grew over the years to be one of the most extensive in the county.

It now houses a dairy, creamery laboratory, history of the travellers and tinsmith section, an old shop which represents many once seen around the country in towns and villages. These shops sold everything from cigarettes to rat traps to loose tea and biscuits and Margaret my shopkeeper looks after it all as can be seen in the photo.

The pub has all the items you would see in a country pub long ago, including wooden crates from Dwans Mineral Waters who had a business in Thurles for many years. We have a forge, carpenter’s and wheelwright’s shop.

In the schoolroom the teacher is a mannequin from Madame Maura’s shop at West Gate in Thurles. Here the old schoolbooks, desks with inkwells and blackboards will bring back many memories to visitors of a certain age.

The kitchen was built to replicate what would have been seen in cottages and farmhouses many years ago, with the old crane and cast iron pots.

The old gramophone can be played by the visitor and John McCormack’s voice can still be heard giving a rendition of “A Nation Once Again”.

It is a privilege to have this collection and a pleasure to be in a position to help the local drama groups and musical societies when they need props for their productions.

In recent years it was great to see items from the museum in the Holycross-Ballycahill Drama Group’s All –Ireland winning play “The Beauty Queen of Leenane” and John B. Keane’s play “Sive”.

Props were also supplied for “Many Young Men of Twenty” staged by the Fr. Mathew Players in New Inn. Recently we gave items to a Disney production and also to a movie made in the midlands named “The Wonder” with Florence Pugh, Ciarán Hinds and Toby Jones.

I was delighted that when they returned my items, they also gave me a van load of props they had to buy for the movie. These included a donkey’s cart, an old dresser, books, cutlery and other items from the 1860s, the period the movie was set in.

All these can be seen at the heritage centre. As a member of Tipperary Heartland tourism group, we are endeavouring to promote tourism in this part of Tipperary.

Cormackstown Heritage Centre has had visitors from all over the world, maybe not in the numbers we would like, but some help from official tourism promotion organisations and funding for things such as signage and marketing would help a lot. –

You can always book a visit to see the Heritage Centre. Call 085 7131584 or you can email Patrick using the following email address: patrickslattery2013 @gmail.com See image below from the shop at Cormackstown: