{"id":"ATL-NMI-001","label":"Maynooth roarer among homemade toys","people_or_site":"Maynooth, Co. Kildare (Ireland)","country_current":"Ireland","historic_region":"Irish Folklife Collection / Maynooth donor metadata","macroregion":"Europe / British Isles","local_name":"","source_term":"Bull roarer","source_language":"English","object_description":"A bull roarer from Maynooth, Co. Kildare, donated by Donnchadh Ó Floinn (National Museum of Ireland F:1934.18).","function_summary":"A homemade toy, shown among children's playthings in the Irish Folklife collection.","attestation_type":"museum_specimen","source_key":"nmi_f1934_18_homemade_toys","source_type":"museum_event_metadata","source_url":"https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Museums/Country-Life/Events/2024/Q4-2024/Pop-up-Display-Homemade-Toys","page_or_plate":"National Museum of Ireland event page; collection number F:1934.18","map_confidence":"medium","plot_status":"plot_with_caveat","coordinate_basis":"Maynooth, Co. Kildare donor-locality anchor from the NMI event metadata. The source does not give production, use, or collection locality; a reported Clear Island provenance is unconfirmed and is not used for the coordinate.","jade_complex_role":"","blurb":"In December 2024 the National Museum of Ireland's Country Life museum staged a pop-up display of homemade toys that included a bull roarer, catalogued as F:1934.18 and donated by Donnchadh Ó Floinn of Maynooth, Co. Kildare. It was shown among children's playthings, not ritual objects. That secular framing fits the wider Irish record. When Alfred Haddon gathered specimens in the north-east corner of Ireland for The Study of Man in 1898, he found the instrument was a boy's plaything there too — in common use among boys in Co. Down, where it was called a \"boomer.\" His informant recalled that once, as a boy, when he was playing with one, an old country woman told him it was a \"sacred\" thing, and Haddon added that it would be worth while to follow up the clue.","pull_quote":"It would be a strange circumstance—but not more strange than others that we have already studied—if the dreaded god of vengeance of West Africa should become the plaything of a boy in the north of Ireland.","pull_quote_translation":"","pull_quote_cite":"Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), ch. X, p. 283","term_gloss":"","cls":"play_practical","class_label":"Play / practical","color":"#24766D","is_candidate":false,"flags":["toy_survival"],"f_jade_complex":false,"f_women_taboo":false,"f_women_special":false,"f_snake":false,"sources":[{"citation":"National Museum of Ireland, Country Life collections, F:1934.18 (bull roarer donated by Donnchadh Ó Floinn, Maynooth, Co. Kildare), shown in 'Pop-up display: Homemade Toys,' 22 December 2024","url":"https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Museums/Country-Life/Events/2024/Q4-2024/Pop-up-Display-Homemade-Toys","archive":"https://web.archive.org/web/20251016021432/https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Museums/Country-Life/Events/2024/Q4-2024/Pop-up-Display-Homemade-Toys"},{"citation":"A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), ch. X, p. 283"}],"source_citations":"National Museum of Ireland, Country Life collections, F:1934.18 (bull roarer donated by Donnchadh Ó Floinn, Maynooth, Co. Kildare), shown in 'Pop-up display: Homemade Toys,' 22 December 2024; A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), ch. X, p. 283","source_display":"National Museum of Ireland, Country Life collections, F:1934.18 (bull roarer donated by Donnchadh Ó Floinn, Maynooth, Co. Kildare), shown in 'Pop-up display: Homemade Toys,' 22 December 2024; A. C. Haddon, The Study of Man (1898), ch. X, p. 283","date_citation_display":"","object_display":"A bull roarer from Maynooth, Co. Kildare, donated by Donnchadh Ó Floinn (National Museum of Ireland F:1934.18).","function_display":"A homemade toy, shown among children's playthings in the Irish Folklife collection.","confidence_display":"medium","attestation_label":"museum specimen","etymology_hedge":"","people_key":"maynooth","display_name":"Maynooth roarer among homemade toys","image":{"full":"assets/objects/ATL-NMI-001_nmi_f1934_18.jpg","thumb":"assets/objects/ATL-NMI-001_nmi_f1934_18_thumb.jpg","alt":"Irish bullroarer from Maynooth: a serrated wooden slat pierced near one end, with its cord attached.","credit":"National Museum of Ireland, Country Life — NMI Collections F:1934.18","license":"© National Museum of Ireland — no open license stated; rehosted low-res for non-commercial research","source_page":"https://web.archive.org/web/20250719085617/https://www.museum.ie/getmedia/d19ce129-4797-45b0-9192-d5a21498b44c/Copy-of-Untitled-Design-(1).jpg?w=2000","rehosted":true,"representative":false,"caption":"A serrated wooden slat pierced near one end for its cord."},"slug":"atl-nmi-001-maynooth-co-kildare-ireland"}