Birr Vintage Week celebrates World Breastfeeding Week with ‘Milk and Motherhood’ exhibition

Birr Vintage Week will celebrate World Breastfeeding Week by featuring an exhibition titled ‘Milk and Motherhood’ to the festival.

The exhibition will run from 11am to 5pm in Birr Methodist Church over the August Bank Holiday weekend, Saturday, August 1, and Monday, August 3, and from 11am to 1pm on Tuesday, August 4.

Members of the public are invited to view beautiful images of mother-baby dyads captured by local photographer Alex Lazorenko.

Each portrait is accompanied by a personal story, written by the mother herself, reflecting on the people, places and moments of support that shaped her breastfeeding journey.

The exhibition is a collaboration between photographer Alex Lazorenko and Cuidiú Offaly, the local branch of the national breastfeeding and parenting support charity, Cuidiú.

Printing and presentation for the exhibition were kindly sponsored by Fivealley businesswoman Lisa Dooley of The Factory. Both women are active members of Cuidiú Offaly.

"Although breastfeeding in public is protected by law, many mothers still feel hesitant the first time they feed their baby outside the home. One of the hopes of this exhibition is to help normalise breastfeeding by making visible what has always been both natural and deeply human: a parent responding to their child's need for nourishment, comfort and connection," said Cuidiú Offaly Chairperson, Jasmine Elkhershi.

Historically, Offaly has not been a county where breastfeeding was the norm. Yet, over the years, a compassionate and determined community of mothers at Cuidiú Offaly, Banagher Breastfeeding Group and others have quietly transformed that landscape.

Offaly has been celebrated for having some of the highest breastfeeding rates in Ireland. Breastfeeding rates in Offaly/Laois increased by 6.1% between 2024 and 2025, with almost three in five (58.1%) three month old babies being either exclusively or partially breastfed.

The statistics for breastfeeding continuation are a testament to the power of timely community and professional support for mothers, with a drop off rate of 3.85% in non-exclusive breastfeeding between the mother and baby’s first visit to the Public Health Nurse and the three month visit (against a national drop off rate of 5.7%).

The drop off rate in exclusive breastfeeding in the same time period was exceptionally low, at just 0.4% between birth and three months of age.

Many of the mothers in the exhibition are the first in their family to breastfeed for several generations and have since gone on to support friends and relatives to breastfeed their own babies.

This exhibition is a celebration of those mothers, babies and families, and of the communities that have carried them.

Cuidiú Offaly’s trained Breastfeeding Counsellors provide free breastfeeding support in person, by phone and through their WhatsApp group of over 160 members.

For meeting dates and more information, see their social media pages @cuidiuoffaly.