OnTheTown: A pram, a polio callipers and a baby weighing scales were among the most evocative items on display at an exhibition that opened on Thursday at the National museum.
There was also intense interest among the guests at the official opening of Down Memory Lane: Childhood in the 1950s in the sweets, such as macaroon bars,dolly Mixture, lollipops and chocolate tea cakes, which were on offer.
"Did you get your fi'pence worth?" asked Don Dillon, a retired vocational school principal from Kiltimagh, Co Mayo, recalling how much a bag of sweets cost. Dillon features in some of the exhibition's photographs, dressed in a Roy Rogers outfit and a Boy Scouts outfit.
Brid Hughes and her husband, Cecil, who will be married 40 years next Wednesday, also feature in some photographs - both as children growing up in separate counties and dressed in their First Holy Communion outfits.
"It's a celebration of childhood in the 1950s," said Dr Pat Wallace, director of the National Museum. "It reflects all the classes of society."
Broadcaster and journalist Vincent Browne, who opened the exhibition, recalled the games they used to play, the sense of community, emigration, the role of the Church and the cruelties that existed in the 1950s.
With emigration "there was a terrible sense of parting and of loss," he said. There was also "the terrible sense of Ireland being a failed entity . . . There was huge unemployment." As a child, there were "endless Masses, rosaries and benediction and the glorious scent of incense," he added.
Down Memory Lane: Childhood in the 1950s continues at the National Museum of Ireland - Decorative Arts and History, Collins Barracks, until Feb 2007