Back to the future: Cork Public Museum celebrates 80 years with new exhibition

Colette Sheridan fastens her seatbelt for some time travel as Cork Public Museum celebrates its landmark 80th anniversary

Sun, 10 Aug, 2025 - 07:44

Colette Sheridan

It's the variety of the job that appeals most to the curator of Cork Public Museum.

Dan Breen is chatting in his paper-and-files-festooned office as 1945 Uncorked: The Founding of Cork Public Museum is about to launch.

“In the last few days, I went from doing the insurance for guitars we’re getting for the Rory Gallagher exhibition to organising the collection of medieval stones found in Sunday’s Well,” he says.

Curator MJ O'Kelly and Taoiseach Eamon de Valera at Cork Public Museum in 1946.

Celebrating 80 years, the museum at Fitzgerald Park (not ‘Fitzgerald’s Park’ as it is generally punctuated) is currently being re-roofed, and the render of the external walls is being fixed.

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The students of the MA programme in museum studies at UCC have curated the landmark exhibition. It’s all go in this shrine to the past.

Originally a joint operation between UCC and Cork Corporation, the museum’s management has been fully under the remit of local government since 1963. There was an appetite for a museum in the second city in a period when it didn’t exist.

A letter to the then- Cork Examiner published on May 20, 1926, read: “A crying shame a city the size and importance of Cork has never possessed a museum of some kind or another to which the citizens, particularly the younger generations, should have access.”

Dan in Cork Public Museum which is celebrating its 80th anniversary with 1945 Uncorked, an exhibition marking eight decades of heritage and history. Picture: Dan Linehan

The Cork International Exhibitions of 1902 and 1903 attracted a staggering two million visitors, including King Edward VII and Queen Alexandria. The exhibitions of photography, archaeology, art, agricultural implements and electricity were presided over by Edward Fitzgerald, the Lord Mayor of Cork.

They took place on what is today Fitzgerald Park, which was originally developed as a private house and gardens by the Beamish family. The house later became Cork Public Museum. The exhibitions, says Breen, made a profit of what would today be worth “hundreds of thousands if not more, enough to buy the land and the house.”

It was the Fitzgerald Park Municipal Museum from 1910-1924. But for two decades, Cork was devoid of a cultural institution to preserve local cultural heritage.

However, the popularity of an exhibition about Irish independence, covering the period from 1798-1921 (the Civil War didn’t make the cut), for a couple of weeks in March 1942 at the St Patrick Street offices of the Cork Examiner, proved that Corkonians are fascinated by their history.

The exhibition, organised by Coiste na Gaedhilge, resulted in the emergence of a committee aiming for a permanent public museum in Cork. At a time of limited opportunities for women, five women had prominent roles on the museum committee, notes Breen.

A portrait of Jane Dowdall who was the Lord Mayor of Cork in 1959. Picture: Dan Linehan

They included Jane Dowdall (née Doggett), who was its driving force. (She became Cork’s first female Lord Mayor in 1959 and was also a Fianna Fáil senator.) Also on the committee was Bridget G MacCarthy, who became the first female professor of English at UCC. And the first woman president of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, Sheila Murphy, sat on the committee.

Dowdall was a nurse, a philanthropist and a company director. She moved to Cork with her businessman husband. After his death, she became active in local organisations such as the Irish Country Women’s Association and Penny Dinners. She was a friend of Éamon de Valera, who used to stay in her house in Blackrock whenever he visited Cork.

Other prominent proponents of the Cork Public Museum were archaeologist and author Sean P Ó Riordáin and MJ O’Kelly. O’Kelly was the museum’s first curator, and he was also Professor of Archaeology at UCC.

Breen is the fifth curator of the Cork Public Museum. He succeeded the late Stella Cherry, who influenced him in a big way. “She felt, and I support the idea, that the museum needs to tell all the stories, including minority stories. There’s a big section on the Civil War. There’s also a big section on Cumann na mBan. We’re 20 years working with the Cork Traveller Women’s Network.

Dan at one of the 1945 Uncorked displays at Cork Public Museum. He succeeded the late Stella Cherry to become the museum's fifth curator. Picture: Dan Linehan

“We recently acquired the LGBTQ+ archive and, hopefully, will have an exhibition on that next year. We have worked with the Cork Hebrew congregation. When the synagogue closed in 2016, we took the artefacts from it and put them on display, working with the Rosehill family.

“There are lots of histories here that people may not be aware of. We like to collect minor histories as well as the bigger picture. We have a massive Munster Fusiliers collection. That would never have been collected here before, as it would have been seen as British history.”

The Cork Public Museum has between 70,000 and 90,000 objects, from an inch-sized golden bird from the seventh century to postcards and large objects. It operates on a budget of around €400,000, which includes the payroll for eight people.

Some of the exhibits at Cork Public Museum as it celebrates its 80th anniversary. Picture: Dan Linehan

That may not seem much, but Breen points out that there are funding opportunities from the likes of the Irish Heritage Council. “In the last six months, we’ve taken on new staff members: an education officer, a collections manager and a digital officer,” says Breen.

"Stella could only have dreamed of having these positions. Before, it was just me and front-of-house.”

Thrilling discoveries

Alexandria Kaileigh-Truesdell is from Florida and has a degree in history and folklore. She is doing an MA at UCC in Museum Studies.

Every year, for the last 10 years, students from that course have curated the annual exhibition in collaboration with the museum. It takes place in a medium-sized room in the building.

A striking exhibit in the room, encased in a glass box, is a woman’s ARP (Air Raid Precaution) suit in beige. There are a couple of beautiful ceramic vases from the Cork International Exhibition on show.

A group in Fitzgerald Park, photographed around 1940 as they were being instructed by the Air Raid Precaution Unit on the use of gas masks.

“There are some items from the Emergency (as the Second World War was referred to in Ireland) to contextualise when the museum opened,” says Kaileigh-Truesdell, who is helping to market the exhibition.

She is one of a team that covers areas such as education, curation and design. “With marketing, we put together press releases and contacted journalists. We’ve done flyers, but the biggest thing is word-of-mouth. Some of the students did interviews on UCC Campus Radio.”

Kaileigh-Truesdell says her work experience and MA studies have helped expand her knowledge of Irish history.

Edward Fahy building a site model of Carrigilihy, Co Cork, for Cork Public Museum in the 1950s.

“The course emphasises the Irish museum sector. For instance, we learned about the history of the national museum and also the local authority system. On the programme are American, Irish, South African and Russian students. All of us came into this through different models of how museums work and how the museum sector is affected by economic trouble. I’ve had some amazing experiences here.”

Cork Public Museum collections officer Mera Qamar adds: “This exhibition has brought to light thrilling discoveries about the museum that had lain dormant for decades, linking the past with the present. It has been a pleasure to put several of these on display for the public.”