Collins’ museum and Mizen centre among Top 10 Irish attractions

A tiny rural museum run by relatives of General Michael Collins is one of two West Cork museums to win a major accolade from an international tourism organisation which puts them among the top 10 in the country.

The Michael Collins Centre near Clonakilty and the Mizen Head Visitor Centre near Goleen have received a 2014 Travellers’ Choice Award from TripAdvisor.

The two centres share the award with eight well-known cultural centres, such as The National Museum of Ireland, The Jeanie Johnston Tall Ship and Famine Museum, The Little Museum of Dublin, and the Waterford Treasures. Also included in the list is the Croke Park Stadium and GAA Museum and the Shackleton exhibition in Dun Laoghaire.

“We’re just a small operation, attracting about 5,000 visitors a year, but this award places us in the top 1% of destinations nationally, while we are in the top 10 for museums and interpretative centres,” said a delighted Timmy Crowley, who founded the Michael Collins Centre at Castleview, Clonakilty, 14 years ago.

His family and Michael Collins’ family are related — his father’s grandmother, was a second cousin of Michael Collins’ mother.

The Crowley family recently received an email from TripaAvisor with the good news, followed by a framed award.

“The main part of our presentation is a live talk with anecdotes and stories, and the family connection gives it great authenticity.

“Our aim is that when visitors leave us they will have a greater understanding of this complicated era in which Michael Collins lived and died and will have enjoyed the whole experience,” said Mr Crowley who collected artefacts for years before opening the centre in 2000.

“My own house was full of bits of memorabilia relating to Michael Collins and that era, as well as other aspects of local history,” he recalls. He plans to officially launch a special Michael Collins Memorial Park adjacent to the museum next summer — the complex will thereafter be known as the Michael Collins Centre and Memorial Park.

Meanwhile, the Mizen centre opened in the 1990s after the famed signal station became automated.

The centre includes a cliff top interpretative centre and cafe where visitors walk down 99 steps to a famed signal station accessible by a newly-built bridge over a magnificent scenic gorge.