For a highly-concentrated dose of mid-20th-century nostalgia, visit this rather sweet little museum just outside Athlone. You walk through a series of recreated businesses, each little building jam-packed with memorabilia and antiques—a “medical hall” (drugstore), grocery store, hardware store—and a few farmer’s crofts. The intriguing McCormack Photography Room preserves the collection of a real photography studio that operated in Athlone from 1948 until 2002. As well as antique cameras and developing equipment, it displays photographs from the decades the shop was in operation. Museum guides could hardly be keener to impart their encyclopedic knowledge.