Ballymaclinton and the 1908 Franco- British Exhibition
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ARTS The Ideal Home (Rule) Exhibition: Ballymaclinton and the 1908 Franco British Exhibition Stephanie Rains Introduction At the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition in White City, London, one of the largest commercial attractions was an Irish 'village', called Ballymaclinton. Erected at a cost of £30,000, Ballymaclinton cost sixpence to enter, and ran for the entire six months of the exhibition.l Consisting of several dozen buildings (most of which were variations on the traditio:hial Irish white-washed thatched cottage), it also contained replicas of Blarney Castle, complete with Blarney Stone, the St. Laurence Gate in Drogheda, an art gallery, a round rower, a Celtic cross and a reconstruction FIELD DAY f>-EYIEW 7 2011 FJELD DM REY1EW Souvenir postcard for 1908 Franco-British Exhibition. of the ancestral cottage of former United the exhibitions were usually held in major 2 F. G. Dmnas, e~ . , Franco~ States president William McKinley. Several cities, they were generally attended by British Exhibition Illu strated Reuiew of the buildings housed cottage industries, people who readily took themselves to (Lo nd on, 1908), 288 . such as Limerick lace and Donegal Carpets, be metropolitan members of a modern Robert \X1. Rydell, A II the as well as displays of handmade furniture world that staged, with affectionate \\lor/d's a Fair: Visions of Empire at American and enamel jewellery produced by the Irish condescension, the 'backwardness' of lnternational Expositions, Decorative Arts Association.2 It also had such villages as an exotic condition that 1876-1916 (C hi cago, its own post office, from which visitors demonstrated the richness of the imperial IL, 1984). 38-71; and Stephanie R ains, could send one of the many postcards of tapestry. Commodity Culture and the village, with a special Ballymaclinton Besides the more frequent African or Social Class i11 Dubli11 postmark. The village was staffed by 150 Far Eastern examples, several Irish (and 1850-191.6 ( Dublin, 2010), 193-95. women in 'traditional' costume, including a Scottish) villages also appeared at national 4 Janice tlellanu, IJr;t;oh red cloak; their job was to demonstrate the and international exhibitions across Europe a11d Irish Home Arts and standard crafts of the cottage economy and and North America. The first Irish village Industries 1880-1914 (Dublin, 2007), 50-57. to welcome visitors. They were uniformly seems to have been displayed by Alice Han referred to in official publicity and in aid of the Donegal Industrial Fund at the newspaper accounts as 'colleens'. Irish Exhibition at the Olympia in London Fake villages like Ballymaclinton were in 1888. A larger scale version, a kind that regular features of fairs and exhibitions became more popular, first appeared at the throughout Europe and North America World's Fair in Chicago in 1893.4 In fact, during the late nineteenth and early there were two competing Irish villages twentieth centuries. African villages were in Chicago, one organized by Alice Hart, the most commonly represented, but many again for the Donegal Industrial Fund, Middle and Far Eastern settlements were and one by Lady Aberdeen for the Irish staged as well. At the Chicago World's Fair Industries Association. The aim of both of 1893, for example, there were Japanese was to boost Irish industries; a typical and Algerian villages among many others, product was lace, made almost exclusively and the 1907 Irish International Exhibition by women in rural areas. 5 Irish villages also in Dublin had a Somali Village} Because appeared at the 1904 StLouis World's Fair IDEAL HOME (RULE) EXHIBITION 5 See Catherine Morris, and the 1915 Panama-Pacific International showcasing various aspects of British and 'Alice M illigan: Republican Exposition in San Francisco. French culture and commerce, were the Tableaux and rhe Revival'; Field Day Reuiew 6 (2 010), Ballymaclinton would not have been Court of Honour, the Palace of Women's 133-65, for a discussion considered historically or culturally Work and the Machinery Hall, as well as of the visual style of the significant at the time, even by most of its galleries of officially sanctioned British and Irish Industries Association village at the World's Fair; own organizers. The primary purpose for French art. As was common for exhibition and Rains, Commodity its main sponsors was commercial gain, buildings, these were plaster fa<;ades on Culture and Social Class ;, and its form and content were designed to steel frames; they were also vast and Dublin 1850-1916, 155- 58, for a discussion o.f its achieve that. However, Ballymaclinton was elaborate displays of imperial wealth and similarities ro the displays extremely successful, attracting two million power. The Court of Honour, for example, at charity bazaars in Dublin visitors in 1908; it returned for several other a complex of pavilions, terraces and dunng this era. 6 See David Brett, The exhibitions held on the same site in the years boating lakes, was a pastiche of Mughal Coustruction of Heritage before the First World War. It therefore seems architecture clearly intended to reflect (Cork, 1996), 82- 83 . likely that it had a greater impact than its the centrality of India to British imperial 7 Paul Greenhalgh, 'Art, Politics and Society at the organizers could have hoped for. It was, for prestige. The other British buildings Franco-British Exhibition example, the subject of high quality colour were examples of 'Edwardian baroque' of 1908', Art History, 8, 4 postcards produced in such large numbers architecture, described by Paul Greenhalgh (1985), 434-52 . 8 Green halgh, 'Arr, Politics that Ballymaclinton would have been one of as 'not a European baroque ... but a hybrid and Society at the Franco the most widespread images of Ireland during descendant of Wren, Hawksmoor and British Exhibition of 1908', the first decade of the twentieth century. Vanbrugh, keeping the tone as English 444. Government Buildings on Jvier rion Square in Scholarly discussions of this phenomenon as was possible'. This was the style seen Dublin, designed by Aston have always tended to treat it as a display in many large scale public buildings Webb a nd comp leted in of 'colonial primitivism' for metropolitan constructed during this era. 8 1911, is one of the few examples of Edwardian imperial audiences. 6 However, as a simple The Ballymaclinton village had baroque constructed in representation of Irish 'backwardness' to several sponsors and organizers, and the Ireland. British visitors, Ballymaclinton contained exhibit as a whole was an amalgam of 9 Dumas, ed., Franco-British Ex hibition Illustrated several striking anomalies, which make those sponsors' differing agendas. It was Review, 288. that reading of it difficult to sustain. The primarily constructed as an advertising 10 Rain s, Commodity Culture contradictions in its representation of device for McClinton's Soap, which was and Social Class i11 Dublin JSS0-1916, 196. Irishness arise from considering it in isolation; based in Donaghmore, County Tyrone. they are not internal to it as such. It needs to One of the cottages at Ballymaclimon was a be considered in the context of other popular replica of the workers' housing constructed discourses of the time, and in relation to other by McClinton's in Donaghmore, a four sections of the Franco-British Exhibition. room cottage with a ha!f-acre of garden and a rent of four shillings a week. 9 By 1908, McClinton's was an established Ballymaclinton and the 1908 international 'luxury' brand, with products Franco-British Exhibition such as Colleen Shampoo, Sheila Soap and Hibernia Shaving Cream. McClinton's was Held to celebrate the entente cordiale of a luxury brand because its soap products 1904 between Britain and France, the were made using plant ash and vegetable Franco-British Exhibition was organized oils, rather than the harsher animal fats. and run by entrepreneur Imre Kiralfy. He McClinton's had contributed a small went on to mount several other exhibitions display of 'model cottages' to the 1907 at the same Shepherd's Bush venue over the Irish International Exhibition in Dublin; succeeding years; they included the Imperial the Ballymaclinton village in London the International Exhibition of 1909 and the following year was a dramatic expansion of Coronation Exhibition of 1911, at both this display.lO However, Ballymaclinton had of which an Irish village was included. 7 other sponsors besides McClinton's Soap. Among the principal exhibition buildings It also housed a tuberculosis prevention 7 f:ll=:LD DAY R~VI~W exhibition organized by the Women's parentage. It is mainly with the object 11 L ady of the House (August National Health Association (under Lady of demonstrating that fact that I have 1908) , 6. l2 Rydell, All the World 's a Aberdeen's leadership), intended to promote collected and arranged the present Fair, 38- 71; and Ra ins, greater awareness of the causes, prevention Exhibition. I feel that judgement will Commodity Culture and and treatment of the disease. All of the recognise, in the works shown here, Social Class in Dubli11 1850- 1916, 194-95 . proceeds of Ballymaclinton went to the a distinctive temperament ... of a 13 Irish Times, 20 Januar y Irish Tuberculosis Fund; fund-raising of this recognised Irish school of painting.14 1908. kind was common at various public venues 14 Hugh Lane, Irish Art Gallery, Ballym aclirzton, and functions.11 A visitor to Ballymaclinton in 1908, Franco-British Exhibition The involvement of a commercial therefore, might make a tour of the village (London, 1908), 5. manufacturer and a public health charity in that included an inspection of the model 15 Lady of the House (july 1908), 2 . itself made Ballymaclinton unusual within Irish thatched cottages and their resident 16 Barbara O'Connor, the international circuit of 'native villages'.