Abstract
This article is based on an illustrated conference paper on the subject of ‘Survival’, presented to the Society for Folklife Studies 1997 Conference at Killarney, county Kerry. It evolves from the conference paper, and from my other work on Irish furniture and genre paintings, as it incorporates subsequent research. The main theme of that meeting was Famine, and the Survival slide talk emphasised how Ireland's material culture played its part in helping people live through times of hardship. Furniture historians have long tended to research furniture with commercial value, conversely, this paper explores how people existed seemingly without conventional furniture, through improvisation, recycling and the use of sometimes unexpected materials.
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