Newry & Mourne Museum at 40 by Joanne Cummins

Newry and Mourne Museum celebrates its 40th anniversary on the 30th of May, the date it was officially opened in 1986. Initially housed in Newry Arts Centre, the early years were focused on building up the collection. Work went on behind the scenes in the year leading up to the opening, by which time the first Museum Officer, Tony Canavan, estimated that there were a thousand objects in the collection. 

In 1999 with the help of external funding, staff numbers began to grow, alongside a number of volunteers who also made a significant contribution. This led to increased temporary exhibitions and allowed education work with local schools to become a core part of the Museum’s role in the community. Much of the work of the Museum at this time was central to many major local achievements such as Newry gaining city status in 2002. 

Perhaps the most significant change the Museum has seen was its move to Bagenal’s Castle, a restored 16th-century fortified house, built by Sir Nicholas Bagenal in the mid-16th century, and an attached 19th-century warehouse. For much of the 20th century both buildings were owned by Arthur McCann and functioned as the Victoria Bakery. 

Restoration and fit-out of the buildings began in 2005. The Castle is a protected monument and archaeologists were present throughout the construction period, revealing original features which shaped the restoration process. Features from all periods of the history of the buildings were integrated into the exhibition layout and interpretation.  

The larger building increased exhibition space for permanent and temporary exhibitions and provided space for education workshops and events. A major revamp of the galleries took place in 2018, providing new panels and interactives, along with many new objects on display. Visitors can trace the social and political history of the Newry and Mourne area from the pre-historic period up to the early 21st century. Almost all of the artefacts on display in the main exhibitions have been donated by local people or those with links to the area.

Two temporary exhibitions are held each year that further highlight the rich heritage and culture of the region. These are often accompanied by a publication, available on the NMD Museums website, for anyone curious about different aspects of local history. Since 2007 there have been over forty temporary exhibitions based on the Museum collection, supplemented with loans from the public and other institutions. Thanks to this generosity, the collection has continued to grow, with objects now numbering over 16,000. Another significant development has been the provision of a new NMD Museums website, which provides access to the catalogues of both Newry and Mourne and Down County Museum. 

Amongst these are significant archival collections. Newry and Mourne Museum has one of the most outstanding local history archives in a local museum in Northern Ireland, containing sources of local and national importance. The three main archival collections include, the Reside Collection, which consists of around 10,000 documents, dating from 1715 to the 1990s and includes estate records such as rental books, titles deeds, maps and estate surveys. 

The collection of Hugh Irvine relates to local social and family history in the Kilkeel area and includes photographs, postcards, receipts from local businesses, books, newspaper cuttings and detailed notes on family history.

The Éamon Donnelly Collection comprises his personal and political papers. Donnelly, whose family lived in Newry, was a prominent Nationalist politician in Ireland during the 1920s and 1930s, and one of the founding members of Fianna Fáil.

Since re-opening in March 2007, the Museum has welcomed visitors from all over the world and continues to engage with the local community through its funded projects, such as Social Housing, Fixing our Broken Planet and the upcoming community curation project funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation. School visits have gone from strength to strength, with local children participating in immersive local history workshops in topics such as the Famine and the Second World War. A vibrant events programme continues to draw people of all ages to a wide variety of lectures and workshops.