The National Museum of Ireland is building a massive programme of local, community driven historical archives, and so far Galway is dominating the field.
The National Museum’s Irish Community Archive Network (ICAN) has already delivered 17 community driven archival projects, which it aims to ramp up to 70 over the next three years.
Of those, 16 are with communities in Galway. This has been facilitated through a collaborative partnership with Galway County Council.
‘Community’ is the theme of the national museum’s programme of activities for 2019 which has been revealed today.
In keeping with the commitment set out in its Master Vision Statement 2018 – 2032, the Museum’s programme of activity for the year has been developed with a view to engaging diverse and new audiences.
last year the museum welcomed 1.2 million visitors, a number which it hopes to top this year by working new communities, groups, researchers, and artists across its range of activities.
Lynn Scarff, who took up the position of Museum Director last May, said their role was to “preserve and present the stories of Ireland and its place in the world”.
This, she said, was the ethos that has driven the programme for this year, focusing on “engaging, entertaining and educating” as many communities as could be reached.
More than 160,000 people engaged with the Museum’s Education and Outreach Programme in 2018, and its hoped that this year that will rise to over 170,000.
This will be achieved through “some 500 events and workshops, 400 school visits, 2,200 self-directed group initiatives, and 1,100 facilitated group initiatives.”
The Museum is also hosting a number of notable events on its four sites this year in association with other organisations, such as Culture Night, the Dublin Pride Block Party, the Stoneybatter Festival, Cruinnu na nÓg, and Dublin Festival of History.
