From a crumbling former prison to one of Ireland’s top museums

From a crumbling former prison to one of Ireland’s top museums

10 June 2015

DOWN County Museum’s transformation from crumbling jail to major visitor attraction has been outlined by its founding director in a new book.

Brian Turner’s The Common Ground looks at the campaign to establish a museum in Downpatrick in the 1960s, the apathy which turned to enthusiasm, and the museum’s very humble beginnings.

To the background of Northern Ireland’s political and social unrest, which turned to violence, the vision from the start was for a ‘common ground’ —  “a space for us all to come together to find out about our past and present, and to exchange information in a safe atmosphere”.

Brian’s book concentrates on the the period from 1980, when the museum finally got the go-ahead, to 2000, but it is clear that thoughts of a museum had been in the minds of the local populace for quite some time.

“In its issues of 25 March, 1854 the editor of the Downpatrick Recorder made the rather questionable statement that Downpatrick town ‘is reputed to be the wealthiest for its size in her Majesty’s dominions’,” said Brian in his introduction to the book.

“He was responding to a correspondent who styled herself ‘A native lady’ and appealed for the establishment of a museum.

“The editor thought this was an excellent one but his reference to the wealth of the county town of Down was made in order to contrast its financial capacity with its lack of civic spirit, and his pessimism about the willingness of its inhabitants to support such a project.

“Nevertheless the consciousness of its identity as the ancient capital of one of most populous and wealthy counties in Ireland was still alive in the 1960s when a group of people from different parts of the county banded together to advocate the establishment of a museum in Downpatrick. 

“Although largely forgotten by most of its inhabitants, there had always been those who appreciated the historical interest and significance of ‘the city of Down’ from which the whole county had taken its name. It was the traditional burial place of St Patrick and one of Ireland’s oldest towns with an urban recognition which had been reflected in its market charters and borough status since the medieval period.”

By the mid-1960s Brian said that some felt a sense of optimism about Northern Irish society and in 1966 one of the first community Civic Weeks was held in Downpatrick.

“The Town Clerk at the time was Maurice Hayes, later a senior civil servant, Irish senator and Northern Ireland Ombudsman. Together with Malachy McGrady, a prominent businessman and public servant, retired Major Terence Johnston from Castlewellan, and other public-spirited individuals, he was part of a group which not only advocated the establishment of a museum for County Down but took active steps to introduce the idea both to the County Council and the general public,” Brian explained.

It would appear that time was of the essence. With a local government reorganisation on the cards, county councils were being abandoned for smaller district councils with less power.

“This was likely to increase attention to the rapidly growing population in north Down, adjacent to Belfast, with a corresponding decrease in focus on the historic centre of Down,” said Brian.

Lobbying through the 1960s continued and in 1967 a ‘Provisional Museum Committee’ organised a substantial exhibition in the Assembly Hall in Downpatrick, with many enthusiastic reports of visitors reported in the press.

“Throughout 1968 and 1969 lobbying of a largely unresponsive Down County Council continued,” he added.

Nevertheless the project got the go-ahead and on March 31, 1969, a trust was formed to advocate the establishment of a county museum in Downpatrick, which for Brian was one of the most distinctive achievements of Down District Council.

“We thank those councillors and council officers who saw the worth of the project and those interested people who gave their time and expertise freely to serve on the museum’s various advisory groups,” he said.

Both as a junior assistant and subsequently as the head of Local History at the Ulster Museum in Belfast, Brian had taken an interest in the county museum concept and on January 2, 1981 arrived in Downpatrick to establish the museum. It wasn’t the easiest of starts, though.

“There was no chair to sit on, no desk to write at, and the council did not own a building in which to put a museum,” Brian noted. “It turned out to be the right way to start, and as Maurice Hayes has put it, ‘It was very wise to have a pilot before trying to fly the plane.”

“The first accommodation for the museum was in a single room of the Southwell Charity building on the Mall, Downpatrick….Then we began to explain our ambitions, to collect material, and to make plans.

“As the room filled up, as desks fell through the rotten floor, as the pigeon feathers floated down from the lodgers of the roof, it was clear to all that serious action had to be taken to find a long term home on a sufficient scale to do practical justice to the commitment that had been made.

“In the short-term, with the cooperation of the Church of Ireland, new office and storage space was found at 40 English Street, a listed but derelict 18th century house a few yards away. All the time we were aware that directly opposite the Southwell Charity, between the courthouse and the cathedral, and right at the centre of Downpatrick’s most historic precinct, was the former County Gaol, the only surviving example of an Irish county gaol of its type and period.”

However, only its front curtain wall, facing the street, had statutory protection and, behind the wall, Roads Service wished to demolish the buildings to provide a car park.

“At this crucial moment in 1981 Eddie McGrady, later MP for South Down, was elected as chairman of Down District Council for the fourth time,” said Brian.

“Through his influence, and that of Maurice Hayes and Seamus Byrne, then chief executive of the council, the official juggernauts of destruction were stopped in their tracks and the council was able to purchase the complete gaol site for the purpose of a County Museum.”

One by one the buildings of the Old Gaol were restored — and it was a major task.

After serving as military accommodation in both the First and Second World Wars the museum building had further deteriorated, with parts of it being used for a variety of purposes including accommodation for the early years of Downpatrick Technical College, and space for a variety of others uses ranging from the Ordnance Survey to the Girl Guides and Thompson’s auction room.

The Gateway needed restored and repointed but the Governors’ building was in a worse situation.

“The building had suffered from neglect as well as piecemeal alteration,” Brian explained. “The protective layer of harling had largely fallen off the stone walls, metal had corroded, cut stone was damaged and wood was rotten or missing.”

There would be, as the Saul man described it, “financial and bureaucratic battles, disappointments and lost battles” but the result was worth it.

“In Ireland we have an almost continuous history of political and religious conflict, said Brian. “Although our formation in this place has given us much more in common than is often recognised we are not united in our loyalties. This is why our unresolved relationship with the past is so obvious; why it can result in killing people.

“That is why we intended, from the beginning, our museum to be a place for the whole community. It would develop as a professionally run museum, with a properly conserved and documented collection, using research and exhibitions to tell the stories of the people of Down. But more than this, it would provide a space for us all to come together to find out about our past and present, and to exchange information in a safe atmosphere.”

He added: “Entrusting the thoughts of the present to a future which may see them from an entirely different viewpoint creates a measure of vulnerability. That is a risk which many of us interested in understanding our country might wish had been taken more often.”