“Drawing on archival records, archaeological research, ethnographic interviews and oral histories, Meredith Chesson details one of the most engaging ways in which communities and individuals make homes out of houses: through their dressers and the objects they display on them. This beautifully written and illustrated book shows how these humble items of furnishing and decoration anchor stories that link a family’s past, present and future and connect geographically peripheral communities to the wider world through trade, migration and tourism. A highly original and compelling work.” 

~Diarmuid Ó Giolláin, author of Locating Irish Folklore

Hardcover ISBN 9781782050674: €59.00 / £55.00/ $65.00

Published September 25, 2025 by Cork University Press

388 pages with 367 illustrations (351 colour and 16 black/white) and 10 colour tables

For purchase online at https://www.corkuniversitypress.com/9781782050674/irish-dressers-and-delph/ and in your local bookshop

How do people transform a residence into a home that nourishes both body and soul through the alchemy of homemaking? This book focuses a scholarly lens on one homemaking practice, dresser- and delph-keeping in western Connemara, where people utilise these everyday belongings and heirlooms to evoke a powerful sense of welcome and emotional wellbeing. This richly illustrated book presents the results of an anthropological and archaeological study, describing the ways that residents of the island communities of Inishbofin, Inishark, and Inishturk and the nearby mainland towns of Clifden and Cashel today and in the past use dressers to store and display delph and other possessions to convert an architectural space into a meaningful homeplace. The dressers and delph featured in this book connect people across space and through time by telling stories of social memories, personal histories, and community heritage.

Enthusiasts of Irish history, archaeology, anthropology, vernacular architecture, folklore, antiques, and material culture studies will find connections with their own heritage and homemaking practices in this volume.

Inishturk dresser (Image © CLIC Project)

“Methodologically rigorous and theoretically rich, Chesson’s beautifully illustrated study evocatively captures the entangled relationships between people and their things, demonstrating how dressers and delph materialize memories, knit together kin and community, and transform a house into a home. Chesson’s compelling prose coupled with the direct words of household members vividly captures the intimacy and vibrancy of homemaking in the west of Ireland.” 

~Audrey Horning, editor of Becoming and Belonging in Ireland, AD 1200-1600

Page from Irish Dressers and Delph

Figure from Irish Dressers and Delph showing excavated possessions found above a floor (Image © CLIC Project)

“Combining archaeological and anthropological research with detailed fieldwork, this comprehensive publication considers the requirements which transform a house into a home. Meredith concentrates on the dresser and its much cherished delph which form an integral part of this transformation. She draws on her broad experience to focus on rural communities in western Ireland, providing an expansive range of examples encompassing both past and present. This study affords a glimpse of the personalities who curated and cared for the wonderful collections of heirlooms.”

~Rachel McKenna is an architect and author of publications, including Traditional Architecture in Offaly

Dresser Delph, Inishbofin (Image © CLIC Project)