Lisburn Museum celebrates first 30 successfulyears

THE Mayor of Lisburn, Alderman Paul Porter, the Chairman of the Leisure Services Committee, Councillor David Archer, and other Members of Council both past and present recently attended an evening reception in the Irish Linen Centre and Lisburn Museum to mark 30 years since the official opening of the Museum on April 25, 1981.

Thirty years ago the opening of the Lisburn Museum by the then Mayor, the late Dr Samuel Semple, followed a Council decision in 1978 to appoint staff and refurbish the old Assembly Rooms in Market Square as a museum.

Since then the Museum has gone from strength to strength expanding into its present form as the Irish Linen Centre and Lisburn Museum in 1994 when it won some ten coveted awards for its new building adjoining the old museum, and for its Flax to Fabric permanent exhibition. These awards included the prestigious Gulbenkian Irish Museum of the Year Award, a Europa Nostra Award and a Civic Trust Award.

To celebrate the occasion the Museum has had on display a special exhibition entitled ‘Lisburn Museum the First 30 Years’ which looks back at previous exhibitions, events and activities and displays a diverse range of artefacts collected in the previous three decades.

This exhibition, which concludes on May 31, has recently been added to with topical displays on royal weddings and on royal visits to Ireland. It includes a very fine Coulson of Lisburn linen damask tablecloth hand-woven for the royal household to celebrate the marriage of the Prince of Wales (the future Edward VII) to Princess Alexandra in 1861 and other royal commemorative ware.

In his speech at the reception Councillor Archer announced that a much needed external refurbishment of the old museum building will take place in the year ahead. The Mayor, Alderman Porter in praising the Museum’s important work in the community to date expressed his certainty that “the Museum will continue to respond to the challenges of the next thirty years as it had to those of the last.”