Get Creative with the Museum!

In the coming weeks Waterford County Museum is delighted to provide drawings  based on images in our collections to the Dungarvan Leader and Dungarvan Observer for children to colour in. The drawings were created by museum staff member and artist Tony Hayes.

Children are invited to photograph the finished drawing and email it to: info@waterfordmuseum.ie.

We will put them up in a gallery on our facebook page!

As the museum is closed we are thinking of ways to engage with our audiences. We hope to produce short films about our next exhibition and focus on objects in our collections and the story behind them. Watch out for further details on this and other initiatives.   

Museum Closed

Waterford County Museum will remain closed until 19th April as per government guidelines. We would like to send our best wishes to all our members and look forward to seeing you all again soon.

You can still contact the Museum by phone at (058) 45960 and

email: info@waterfordmuseum.ie during normal working hours

Monday to Friday – 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

All museum events, lectures, etc.  are cancelled until further notice.

Photo of the Week

Can you identify anyone in this photo taken in Grattan Square at the St Patrick’s Day Parade in 1975?  If so, please let us know. Our phone number is (058) 45960. This photograph is one of many available to view online on www.waterfordmuseum.ie.

Stories from Old Newspapers

Dungarvan Observer 3 May 1930

Dungarvan Solicitor’s Patent - Removing a difficulty in paper-making

Another Irish invention is described in the official journal of the Industrial Property Office for last month. It stands in the names of Frederick Butterworth, solicitor, Dungarvan, and Robert W. Horsburgh, Saggart, as joint inventors, and its object is to control automatically the thickness of paper in manufacture. The method adopted to measure the thickness depends upon the use of the photo electric cell. A beam of light passed through the paper will vary in intensity with the thickness of the paper, more or less light being absorbed, or the thickness increases or decreases. The beam of light, after its passage through the paper, is focused upon a photo electric cell and variations in intensity of the light produce variations in electric currents in the cell. These variations are amplified and used to control the speed of the motor driving the paper- making machine, so that, if the paper tends to thicken, the motor is accelerated and the amount of ‘stuff’ fed to the machine in each revolution is reduced.

Mr Butterworth, solicitor, is the nephew of Mr E.A. Ryan, solr., Dungarvan, and practices in the Waterford office of the firm of Messrs E.A. Ryan & Co Solrs.

Note: The Butterworth family lived in Colligan Lodge in the early 1900s. 

         

Photo of the Week

Can you identify anyone in this photo taken at St Michael's Hall, Ballyduff Upper in 1945?  If so, please let us know.  This photo is one of many available to view online at www.waterfordmuseum.ie

Cancellation of Events

Our afternoon talks and walks at three have been postponed to later in the year.

The Sheare Street Social Club film which was postponed will also be rescheduled for later in the year.

The annual member’s trip away has also been postponed and will be reviewed at a later date.

Exhibitions in the Museum

We were working on exhibitions etc., when we were forced to close the museum, but the work continues behind the scenes. The first is:

Bureau of Military History – Phil O’Donnell Collection

Phil O’Donnell of Dungarvan was employed by the bureau between 1954 and 1956 to interview former IRA veterans in Co Cork.  The collection includes his draft reports and original material relating to republican prisoners on Spike Island 1921.  As we don’t know when the museum will be open again to visitors, we are thinking about filming the exhibition and making it available on our facebook page. We may do this for other parts of our collection.