Irish dresser

An Irish dresser (Hiberno English), sometimes known as a kitchen dresser, is a piece of wooden Irish vernacular furniture consisting of open storage or cupboards in the lower part, with shelves and a work surface, and a top part for the display of crockery, but also any objects of monetary or sentimental value.

The inside shelves of the top part were generally painted a different, lighter colour, to further highlight the objects on display.

Dressers would have between two and four shelves, which would feature wooden moulding, or if the household could not afford that it was substituted with paper or oil cloth cut and draped over the edge of the shelf.

Early dressers were more likely to have open storage at the bottom, which would have held containers of milk, butter, and fresh water.

[2] In the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the dressers were used less as functional pieces of kitchen storage for everyday use, and were used more to display souvenirs and other sentimental objects.

Keeping the fowl indoors kept the birds at a warmer temperature ensuring a supply of eggs year round[1][3][4] or to protect them from predators.