Galway City Museum was recently awarded €15,000 in the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media’s Regional Museum Exhibitions Scheme 2024. This funding will be used to further enhance exhibition engagement at the Museum.
The funding will go towards the "Keepers of the Gael" exhibition which explores Gaelic society and culture from 1200-1600 AD. The funding will go towards two areas of the exhibition, one of which being a 3D model of a tower house based on the tower house at Kilclooney, Miltown, Co. Galway, dated to the 15th – 16th century, and the other being an audio visual display on the Book of the O’Lees (Book of Hy-Brasil ), a touch screen interpretive guide.
The project team will apply the funding towards the exhibition on the first floor of the museum with the aim of delivering two new and innovative ways for visitors, especially children, young people and those with limited literacy or reading skills, to engage with Gaelic culture.
The installations will provide greater access to 15th and 16th century Galway, and give visitors a feel for what life was like during this period. It will give visitors a chance to experience life inside and around one of the many Tower Houses that decorate the Irish countryside. The audio visual exhibit of the Book O'Lees, originally created in Istanbul in the 1100s, will bring to life the medical reality of the people living in this period, and go through diseases, treatments and cures practiced during this time.
Galway City Museum previously received funding under the Regional Museums Exhibition Scheme 2021 to develop a model of the Claddagh Fishing Village as it was circa 1900. Under this funding scheme the Department of Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media provided money which was then matched by Galway City Museum. This gave museum staff a golden opportunity to build upon the cultural and historical legacy of this well-known area.
The Museum is open Tuesday to Saturday, 10am-5pm. Galleries close at 4.45pm. Admission is free. For further information see www.GalwayCityMuseum.ie
