General News
20 August, 2025
Doll house the pride of Mount Isa collector
Shirley McGuckin has a particular taste when it comes to collectibles.
“I don't know if I am a collector or just a common hoarder,” Shirley McGuckin jokes as she surveys the overstuffed cabinets and shelves in her lounge room.
“My son says when I die, he’s going to just hire a big skip bin and just put everything in there; luckily, I think he is only pulling my leg.
“All this junk brings back so many memories to me.”
The longer someone remains in the same home, the more it becomes intertwined with their distinct personality and life story as the mementos and keepsakes of their past accumulate along the walls, drawers and shelves.
While this is true of every home, there is one unassuming home, close by the Mount Isa racecourse, which is distinct even by the standards of our very unique city.
Entering the front door of Shirley’s home can be a little jarring.
The first thing you notice is the 1000 eyes staring back at you as you scan the walls lined with floor-to-ceiling glass cabinets that are crowded with rows and columns of large porcelain dolls.
Each doll is meticulously preserved and placed in its own unique space in these glass cabinets, which themselves would not look out of place in a regional museum.
Shirley and her beloved husband Harry McGuckin, who was a widely respected racehorse trainer, firmly planted themselves at their Mount Isa address more than four decades ago.
The couple had met in the 1950s when Shirley was living with family in the now-defunct railway town of Malbon, south of Cloncurry, and he was an interstate ringer who had scored a job at Chatsworth Station.
They were quickly married and raised a family in Hughenden and Richmond for almost two decades, where Harry rose early each morning to train horses, before setting up a home and some stables near the Mount Isa racetrack.
The hundreds of dolls Shirley has accumulated over the years have been a mix of opportunity and creativity.
Some of the dolls have been given to Shirley, some have been purchased during her six years volunteering at the Laura Johnson Home Op Shop, and many others have been personally crafted using a kiln, a sewing machine and a paintbrush.
When asked about how Harry felt about living among a permanent audience of porcelain faces, Shirley explained that it was the traditional household chore divide that maintained the peace.
“Harry didn’t go to the pub much because he worked so hard, but he was still very much a man’s man,” she recalls.
“He believed that a woman’s work was inside the house and a man’s work was everything outside. So, he said I could put what I wanted inside the house as long as I didn’t try to put any of it outside.”
Now approaching her 89th year, Shirley doesn’t get out of the house too often these days.
Instead, she says she is content to remain at home, surrounded by her collection of knickknacks, toys and mementos gathered during a long and eventful life.
There is a wall of elaborately painted saws, usually with Outback-themed images, there is a life-sized mannequin draped in a wedding dress, and there are framed photos of some of Harry’s big winners, including Salluc, which won the Birdsville Cup in 1994.
Shirley believes her interest in small creative projects began when she was an impatient youngster at boarding school in Townsville.
“I would write long letters home to my mother and I would usually include a little drawing at the bottom of the page,” she explained.
Shirley sleeps in a bed that has a table next to it where Harry’s ashes are resting in an urn.
Harry sadly passed away a few years ago, surrounded by family in a recliner in the middle of the lounge room of their home.
Shirley said she had also thought about her own final resting place.
She suddenly pointed out a large doll in one of her cabinets.
“My ashes are going into Shirley Temple’s body,” she exclaimed with a wry grin.
“I want them to pull the head off that Shirley Temple doll and put my ashes inside and then put the head back on. Then Harry will be in his urn and I will be in my urn and we can be with one of our kids for one year and then be moved to the next kid.”
Sitting back down and looking over the crowd of dolls, Shirley says she knows there are horror movies about creepy dolls and they might not be everyone’s cup of tea.
“Some people have told me they wouldn’t want to live in a house with so many dolls,” she laughs.
“My granddaughter had to stay in one of my bedrooms one night and when I saw her the next morning, she told me she had gotten up in the middle of the night to find some towels to cover the faces of the dolls in the room.
“She said she just couldn’t sleep with them watching her.
“But it has never bothered me at all. I think they are all very beautiful.”