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Maritime Museum Breaks Tradition with Monday Opening

14th August 2012
Maritime Museum Breaks Tradition with Monday Opening

#MUSEUM MONDAYS – Another national museum in Ireland has opened it doors to the public on Mondays, as is the case of the National Maritime Museum of Ireland in Dun Laoghaire, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The inaugural Monday opening took place at the end of last month and the extension of opening days continues at least throughout the summer months.

Only in June the museum was officially re-opened by President Michael D. Higgins. The musuem had been closed for several years due to essential renovation works costing €4m. A development programme was also implemented with funding from volunteers and government grants.

The premises of the museum are housed in the former Mariners Church on Haigh Terrace, which leads off Dun Laoghaire's main shopping thoroughfare on Georges Street. The museum is operated by the Maritime Institute of Ireland (M.I.I.) and has the invaluable support of a Community Employment Scheme of the Department of Social Protection.

With the new opening hours the museum is open seven days a week from 11am to 5pm. For further information on the M.I.I.'s museum and events visit: www.mariner.ie

Published in Coastal Notes
Jehan Ashmore

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Jehan Ashmore

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Jehan Ashmore is a marine correspondent, researcher and photographer, specialising in Irish ports, shipping and the ferry sector serving the UK and directly to mainland Europe. Jehan also occasionally writes a column, 'Maritime' Dalkey for the (Dalkey Community Council Newsletter) in addition to contributing to UK marine periodicals. 

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Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.