D J McNeill’s work should not be at threat owing to cutback plans at museum

D J McNeill’s work should not be at threat owing to cutback plans at museum

2 February 2022

THE Down Recorder had a long and fruitful relationship with the late Daniel Joseph McNeill — known locally by all his friends here as D J.

Born in Dundrum in 1906, D J came to work at the Technical College in Downpatrick in 1944 and rose to become its principal. Throughout his life D J took photographs of the people and events happening around him. He published a great many of these photographs in the Down Recorder over the years. 

After D J’s death in 1988 his son, Dan, and daughters, Elizabeth and Frances, decided his photographic collection was too important to be kept solely in the family, but should be shared with as many other people as possible.

Knowing that Down County Museum employed experienced and knowledgeable curatorial staff, as well as a photographer, they felt that this was a suitable repository for such a generous gift.

The museum was delighted to receive what is estimated to be at least 30,000 images, comprising prints, black and white and colour film negatives, colour transparencies, glass plate negatives and glass lantern slides, folders of newspaper cuttings and other information, as well as seven of D J’s own cameras and a variety of photographic accessories.

All of the above needed to be properly catalogued and stored before it could be used for research, exhibitions and publications.

The Friends of the Museum supported the temporary employment of someone to help with the cataloguing process and following this, for several years volunteers, working under close supervision, created spreadsheets of information about the archive and replaced D J’s little brown envelopes and shoeboxes in which he stored his negatives with proper archival bags and boxes.

The culmination of all this work can be seen especially in publications, supported financially by the Friends of the Museum and other organisations, such as Our D J and Down on the Farm.

But this is only a fraction of the work still waiting to be done. There are many more images to be digitised so they can be used even more widely and this is much more efficiently, economically and safely done by a professional photographer in-house. Information about the images also needs to be transferred to the museum’s database which was specifically set up to be able to deal with books and photographs as well as objects in the collection. 

The museum is currently commemorating its 40th anniversary. Approximately half of that time was spent on carefully restoring, refurbishing or extending the buildings of the old gaol buildings.

Now is the time for consolidation and extension of all the work done so far on the collections, not deleting or downgrading crucial senior curatorial posts, or that of photographer.

The McNeill family will be remembering that this year, 2022, is the 30th anniversary of young Dan’s death. Two important anniversaries to commemorate in appropriate ways.