Foundations to Future is a new exhibition at the GAA Museum.
By Cian O’Connell
It has been another action-packed year at the GAA Museum. The planning and plotting never stops, but that is all part of the fun.
Julianne McKeigue, Events, Education and Retail Manager of the GAA Museum acknowledges that it has been a busy and rewarding time. A new gift shop has been a significant recent addition too. “We've loads going on, the regular things we do every year - our Christmas events, the Hurloween Tours, instead of focusing on the scary side of Halloween, we focus on the Celtic story, and the story of Cú Chulainn where we do a workshop with the kids,” Julianne McKeigue explains.
“We also have our Culture Night Tours and Our National Heritage Week Tours. So, they're regular events in the calendar. Then, this year we had a lot of family events which is very important.”
Making the museum an interactive experience for visitors is vital. “We’ve a little Junior Explorers route around the museum, and it is very important to engage with the younger visitors,” she explains.
“So, we have a route to make sure our primary school and younger kids can engage with our exhibitions and that they can walk through the museum, spending time there, as well as the tour.
“The focus is when people come, they are often all about the stadium, getting out to see the stadium, but we're so proud of the museum, the fact it is accredited with the MSPI (Museum Standards Programme for Ireland). We’ve huge collections that really showcase the story of the GAA.”
Throughout the past couple of years Teidí Tours have proven to be interesting for a younger audience. “We’ve the Teidí Tours, this is the second year of them, doing teddy bear making workshops throughout the year,” Julianne McKeigue says.
“We run them during the school holidays and at different times. School holidays are very busy for us, they get a teddy bear making kit, they make the teddy bear with their guide.
“They get a sports kit, GAA Museum jersey and shorts for the bear, and they can take them out on tour, learning a bit more about the stadium. They're really popular and tend to book out really quickly, and we're hoping to do more of them next year.”
Julianne McKeigue, GAA Museum, with the Guinness World Record Certificate following the Official Guinness World Record Attempt for World’s Largest Hurling Lesson at Croke Park in 2018. The attempt, which saw 1,772 participants take to the field was made to celebrate 20 Years of the GAA Museum. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile
A new product range is available in the gift shop, while a touch screen has also been added to the museum. Working with others is crucial, too. “The museum community are lovely, there would be a lot of discussion and collegiality between different museums, because we're part of the MSPI, we're a fully accredited museum,” she replies.
“So, we can lend or get objects from other fully accredited museums in Ireland. It is retaining that standard, all of the time, in everything we do in terms of care and collections, how we communicate with visitors, everything from your signage to your education plans.
“All of that is taken into account as part of your accreditation. There is a lot to it with a small team, it is busy, but very enjoyable.”
There is always a fresh initiative or project to embrace. “A big thing for museums now is outreach and engaging with maybe communities, who can't come or are limited in coming,” Julianne McKeigue remarks.
“So, the online resource is brilliant for them, and we hope to keep adding to that all the time. We've a lot of resource there. We did find, during Covid, that we didn't have a lot of online resource, and everyone was scrambling for it at that time.
“Since then, we've really built it up, that bank that is available on the website now through the virtual museum.”
Assisting the educational sector is extremely relevant too. “There is a strong strand of GAA now part of History in the Leaving Cert, we've actually had more secondary schools coming back to us this year,” she adds.
“I'd engage then with history teachers, we go down to the history teachers conference, just to let them know about the tours, and we do a very specific history tour for secondary schools.
"They can do a general history of the GAA or they can do a Bloody Sunday tour, they're popular, particularly before Christmas.
GAA Museum tour guides, from left, Michael Cronin, Seamus Brady, Philip Bentley, Sean Breslin, Betty O'Dwyer, Annette Coyle, Gerry McGarry, and Martin Healy, at Croke Park in Dublin, celebrating two new awards, Great Place To Work, and CIE Award of Excellence, on International Tour Guide Day. Photo by Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile
“May and June are huge with primary schools for their end of year summer school tours. Again, we try to get them to engage, as well as all of the excitement of coming to Croke Park, we do try to get them to go through the museum. Teachers do want that. Even the very small kids can do the Junior Explorers route or the Cú Chulainn workshop.”
With more than 400 subscribers the GAA Museum’s online book club is enjoyed by many. “We record an interview with the author,” Julianne McKeigue explains.
“We recently did Unladylike - a history of Ladies Football, a really good book by Hayley Kilgallon. You can join the book club, and you get sent the video of the interview, you can send in questions, get discounts on books, things like that. That is our book club, we've more than 400 subscribers on that, we talk to them every two months.”
This year’s Foundations to Future exhibition is proving to be a success. “Adam (Staunton), our archivist and collections manager, he worked on a new exhibition,” she says.
“The Bloody Sunday one ran for longer than usually a temporary exhibition would because of Covid. So, we kept it open for a couple of more years. That closed in the summer, and we've the Foundations To Future exhibition, now.
“It is focusing on the 140 years of the GAA, 50 years of Ladies Football, and the anniversary of handball. They're all represented in the new exhibition. That was another big initiative this year.”
Connecting the past, present, and future is part of the remit with events frequently organised. The Bord Gáis Energy Legends Tour brings plenty of joy. “We had a lovely event for the Dublin Festival of History, we had Cormac Moore, who is one of the Dublin City historians, he gave a talk on the Douglas Hyde incident, when he was banned from the GAA, he has a book on that,” Julianne McKeigue says.
“The same night we also had Paul Rouse, who is fantastic, he is like a rock star historian, he did a piece on the Tailteann Games - the anniversary of that was this year, too. That was brilliant, really interesting, and we definitely hope to get him back, to work with him a bit more. It was really popular.”
In 2025, it will be a similar story at the GAA Museum.