Republican heroes honoured in new exhibition
“We wanted to convey that these were ordinary people involved in extraordinary times.”
These are the words of Dan Breen, Curator at Cork Public Museum, speaking about a new exhibition focusing on the lives and deaths of Tomás Mac Curtain and Terence MacSwiney.
The exhibition, Enduring the Most – The Life and Times of Tomás MacCurtain and Terence MacSwiney, is set to open to the public later this month at the Cork Public Museum.
Both former Sinn Féin lord mayors of Cork, MacCurtain and MacSwiney both died in 1920 during the Irish war of Independence. Both men were heavily involved in Ireland’s struggle to be free of British rule.
“The main drive behind the exhibition is the year 1920 and the huge historical, cultural and political impact it had on Ireland.
“And it had a massive impact on Cork itself,” said Mr Breen.
He added: “We wanted to get across that these two men were just ordinary people with social lives and had other interests outside of politics and the IRA and the volunteers.”
The exhibition will feature a large number of artifacts, documents and photographs chronicling the lives of MacCurtain and MacSwiney.
According to Mr Breen, the Cork Public Museum, which opened in 1945, has the county’s most extensive Tomás Mac Curtain collection in the country.
“The items were given to us by the family. Most of this stuff has been here since the '40s and was some of the earliest material given to the museum,” he said.
The museum also boasts a very large Terence MacSwiney collection which is has been on loan from the family for several decades.
Mr Breen thanked the MacSwiney and MacCurtain families for their support and their understanding that “this is the place where that material should be kept, in the city of Cork”.
“I would imagine that there are many other national institutions that would love to have these collections, but thankfully it's here in Cork,” concluded Mr Breen.
To view a virtual version of the exhibition between now and the end of the month visit corkpublicmuseum.ie.