Killyleagh man Ken Tait calls for Council to reconsider its policy on Down County Museum restructuring.
Dear Editor,
Re: Issue at Down County Museum.
The on-going concerns regarding the future of our award winning Down County Museum have been written about much in the past weeks, and many people and organisations have expressed their dismay and concerns regarding the actions of unelected and seemingly unreachable officials of Newry Mourne & Down Council. The strength of public feeling on this issue is very significant.
It alarms me a great deal that Council’s apparent decision and implementation of their plan can occur with little or no consultation with either the communities the museum serves, the stakeholders, donors of exhibit material, or even the elected representatives of the area.
The habit of this council holding closed meetings – often even excluding the media and our elected councillors – there to represent us – seems incredible. Where is transparency – what’s to hide?
At a public meeting held in Denvir’s Hotel on Wednesday hosted by the Friends of Down Museum, and attended by stakeholders and a cross section of our elected representatives, we heard the extent of the measures planned by these officials.
There seems to be an assumption on the part of these same council officials that the museum in Newry and the County Museum in the County Town Of Down should be considered as the same.
However, while Newry’s museum is housed in a historical tower house and contains many exhibits and artefacts, it is much smaller than the county museum in Downpatrick, and quite rightly has a focus on the Newry general area.
The people of Newry deserve their town’s museum, telling the story of the town and that part of the country. It too is a historical place. What a misunderstanding.
Down County Museum, on the other hand, as the title and it’s location in the county town suggests, is the principal museum for the whole of County Down and a bit more. There are county museums in several of the other counties of this land.
In it’s formative years, dating back to the 1960s and probably earlier, but more tangibly from the mid 1980s, a team of very dedicated scholars, archaeology and history-related professionals and technical experts came together to assemble, nurture and develop the award-winning museum we have now – one which is praised and admired by others of the Museum Community across the world, and at the time supported by the legacy Down District Council.
A portion of the collections and artefacts held there still require to be professionally preserved, catalogued and stored or exhibited, but now by whom? A storeroom filled with cardboard boxes isn’t conservation.
I sincerely hope that together, all our elected representatives can put aside any differences they may hold regarding culture or background and convince these council officials of the serious misjudgement they have made regarding this magnificent institution, which is there not just for all the people of Downpatrick, irrespective of their background, but for the people of the world, as they continue to process through it’s buildings and collections in their quest to trace their family roots in this island.
The history of this place is what we are, many of us may not be history-makers, but we are all part of the history of this place, and our successors deserve the best facilities and evidence of our lifetimes – which is their history – that we can provide.
What the council officers are proposing is a short-sighted insult to every one of us.
Yours,
Ken Tait,
Killyleagh.
