Kinsale needs to make sure town museum is re-opened

A COUNCIL official has admitted that it’s not ‘rocket science’ to get the popular Kinsale Museum re-opened, after closing during the pandemic.

At a meeting of Bandon Kinsale Municipal District, Cllr Alan Coleman (Ind) raised the issue about the museum being closed ahead of a busy summer season in Kinsale.

‘It’s been closed quite a long time now and it won’t be re-opened by the volunteers who were there before the pandemic and as a Council we need to step up to the mark,’ said Cllr Coleman.

‘We’ve always had a museum in Kinsale but now we find that over the last decade  that we have a fantastic new museum up and running  in Clonakilty and a museum closed in the middle of Kinsale town centre.’

Cllr Coleman said it’s a shame that the museum is closed and that every effort should be made to get it up and running and get staff hired for it.

‘If we can’t manage a museum in such an iconic building in the middle of the town then it’s bad news for us really and we just need the support of the Council to get it up and running.’

Senior executive officer Mac Dara O’ h-Icí said that about two years ago they had a plan to meet with the volunteers who ran the museum with a view to thanking them for their work but also to ‘pick their brains’ about getting the museum open for the summer.

‘I agree with Cllr Coleman that it’s not rocket science to get it open and we will look at it and re-arrange a meeting with the volunteers, which had been cancelled due to the pandemic.

‘We need to get them on board,’ he said.

Cllr Coleman welcomed the idea of a meeting on the museum with the volunteers, whom he said ‘kept the show on the road’ but added that the most important element would be how Cork County Council put staff in here.

‘We should be meeting with personnel and making sure we get full time back-up for the volunteers who work there.’