Mayo County Council, recognising the potential for heritage tourism, purchased Turlough Park in 1996. A Venetian Gothic country house designed by Sir Thomas Newenham Deane (1827-99) of Cork and Dublin, Turlough Park was sensitively restored by the Office of Public Works and, alongside a purpose-built stone-clad exhibition centre, opened as the youngest of the four museums that comprise the National Museum of Ireland. Today the visitor is encouraged to step back in time as they enter the hall where, in a theatrical tour de force, a cantilevered Portland stone staircase rises majestically around all four walls passing a stained glass window centring on the coat-of-arms of the original builder, Charles Lionel FitzGerald (1833-1902). Also open to the public are the library and drawing room, each furnished as they may have looked at the turn of the twentieth century.
Click here to visit the National Museum of Ireland – Country Life website