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The new wing at the Irish Museum of Time in Waterford. Patrick Browne
Waterford
World’s largest exhibition of cuckoo clocks opens (now someone needs to put them all forward)
The exhibition comes right in time for the clocks going forward this weekend.
THE WORLD’S LARGEST exhibition of cuckoo clocks is set to open today at Waterford’s Irish Museum of Time.
The exhibition – which includes over 400 timepieces – celebrates the craftsmanship of Germany’s Black Forest, where the cuckoo clock was originally created in the 18th century.
The trend for the novelty clocks took off as a hobby for farming families in the region, who passed the time during the long, cold winters constructing the clocks and incorporating intricate carvings along with the familiar sound of the cuckoo.
The exhibits were purchased from a private cuckoo clock museum near Manchester, which is closing down after 50 years.
David Boles, the collector who founded the Waterford attraction, snapped up the clocks and funded the restoration of the new wing at the museum that now houses them.
Boles said the design is “mysterious, green, dark, and unusual”, mimicking the German forests of the cuckoo clock’s origins.
Boles, who has been collecting clocks for over 60 years, worked on the project alongside fellow museum co-founder Colman Curran and project manager Eamonn McEneaney over the past two-and-a-half years.
He said the Black Forest-themed exhibition “offers a rare opportunity to explore how this enchanting region gave rise to timepieces that are both mechanical marvels and timeless works of art”.
Highlights of the exhibit include eight-day clocks, which need to be wound every seven days, wall and table clocks, miniatures and oversized showpieces.
Boles reckons cuckoo birds have the “perfect bird sound for a clock”, and joked that people wouldn’t appreciate the passing of time being marked by seagulls.
But does a niche topic offer much general appeal? Boles thinks so.
“I often ask people what they thought when they were leaving, and they say they only came in for five minutes, but they’ll be back for an hour tomorrow.”
Of course, the opening comes just in time for the annual springtime change this weekend.
Staff at the museum will be busy setting their clocks forward by an hour as summer officially begins.
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