Telling Monaghan’s story for all

Monaghan County Museum is 51 years old, but it is as relevant as ever. Curator Liam Bradley made the point that the museum was designed by Monaghan people for Monaghan people, and he encouraged locals to visit if they have an hour to spare in the county town.

Did you know that Monaghan’s was the first local authority museum in the country? Liam is proud of that fact, although he wasn’t around at its foundation!

During a walk-through of the museum which spans two floors of the landmark building, Liam explained: “The museum opened three months after the Monaghan bombing. There were so many other things going on in the county and region at the time, but the council realised that we needed to start collecting the story and make space for a community, ripped apart by tragedy, to come together around a common story.

“This is a space where people can genuinely feel comfortable and have a conversation with someone they ordinarily would never speak to in the street. I’ve seen it so many times over my 25 years in the museum, where people from different political and social backgrounds, who would have no interaction, talk about a subject sparked by the same object. I don’t know of anywhere else where you can do that - bring people together in a holistic way.”

However, Liam rejected “neutral” terminology when it came to the museum, because every object housed there can evoke a reaction, depending on how someone looks at it: “That’s not neutral, but the museum is a safe space where people can feel confident in saying how they feel,” he said.

The museum has moved a number of times over its half century, but Monaghan Peace Campus is its forever home.

“I wanted to tell a story that was very much of the space. We’ve done a lot of exhibitions touching on the reality of the Border, but for so long, the Border was a word that people really didn’t want to grasp,” he said, adding it was almost a dirty word.

“If you talk about the Border people, do you want to do an exhibition on The Troubles?” Liam asked rhetorically. “Yes and no. I wanted to do a story about life in Monaghan around borders, and the question we ask everyone walking into the museum is: ‘Do the borders in your life define you, or do you define your borders?’”

This philosophical question inspired ‘Bordering Realities: Monaghan People and Stories.’

“Which lines define us? What are the borders in my life? People ask me, ‘Do you think borders are a good or a bad thing?’ I think borders are inevitable.”

Liam sees the museum as a place where people can recognise the line between them and ask themselves if they have the courage to step across it.

“Bordering Realities isn’t the history of Monaghan from the beginning to the end. This is a story about Monaghan… of people, places and how they can facilitate conversations with someone you may be diametrically opposed to.”

‘Bordering Realities’ was the major exhibition that launched the museum in its new location. The attraction challenges the idea of what a traditional museum is, saluting the past while embracing the future. It is as modern and as forward-looking as the €22.5 million building in which it resides. It also houses the branch library.

Liam has spent the bulk of his working life as Monaghan County Museum’s curator and he is an absolute natural. He also met his wife Bernie through the local authority, he met her when he was wearing a grey suit, he said, but she walked into a meeting in full colour!

He confessed that he was no good at football, so being the curator for his home county’s museum was his way of pulling on the jersey.

Asked how he got into curation, and Liam explained that his primary degree was in archaeology, but digging pits in Co Meath in the freezing cold got old fast and so he pursued other indoor pursuits! When asked what inspired him to become an archaeologist, it wasn’t a what it was a who: “It was Indiana Jones that got me started!” he laughed.

The Bordering Realities exhibition is about challenging misconceptions. There are social, cultural, political and economic lines that impact people too, the curator observed. The exhibition isn’t about breaking down borders. We’re not looking to challenge identity; we are looking to accept and acknowledge. You can walk into a new space and take your lines with you and walk out with them.”

The museum, he hoped, would help visitors to see things from a different perspective.

During our conceptual conversation, Liam noted that the plough was the first attempt to draw a line in the ground. Monaghan, he added was always a place of transition, with people coming, going and meeting.

One element of the exhibition this reporter was particularly struck by was Monaghan people from yesteryear alongside their modern counterparts, one example being Senator Billy Fox and former Minister Heather Humphreys, both Fine Gael politicians with experiences of living in a border community.

The colours in the gallery, he noted were subtle hues of green and orange, this was intentional and meant to challenge people to ask themselves what colours mean to them. Do certain colours attract or repel the viewer? The gallery also looks at fraternal organisations from both national and unionist backgrounds, Liam noted they had a lot in common – they looked after their respective communities and women weren’t allowed!

The exhibition is not chronological, it’s thematic. The curator acknowledged that people don’t consume information the way they used to: “Most people read the title and maybe another sentence, then move on. It’s the objects and how we frame them. In this exhibition I’ve gone for very little text, just to give you a context. We use QR codes around the space, you can scan and find out all the information you want.

“Most people want to have a feeling. When I do an exhibition tour, I always say to people at the end, ‘You’re not going to remember what I said, but I hope you remember how I made you feel when I was talking about an object.’”

There is a tranquillity to the exhibition. You can browse at your own pace. It is a wonderful way to spend an hour and best of all, it’s free of charge. You don’t have to be a culture vulture or a tourist to enjoy it either.

Project Children

It wasn’t too quiet in October though, when 320 Americans connected with Project Children came to Monaghan, to celebrate the launch of ‘Project Children Stories: A legacy of peace lives on in Monaghan’. The exhibition is located on the ground floor.

It is the story of how Denis Mulcahy, a charismatic Cork man who left Ireland in his teens, was so struck by The Troubles during the 1970s that he founded a charity, with the help of friends and family. That charity brought a total of 23,000 children affected by conflict to the USA for a six-week holiday annually, right up until the Good Friday Agreement, thanks to the generosity of host families. Founded in 1975, 2025 marked its 50th anniversary. The Project Children exhibition and permanent archive have found their forever home in Monaghan too. Liam went to Greenwood Lake, New York State, where it all began to catalogue and prepare the archive for shipping to Ireland from Denis’s home.

Two underlying principles for the Bordering Realities exhibition are accessibility and sustainability.

The exhibition features sensory walls, a quirky 3D design to the naked eye.

The galleries are designed in such a way that the exhibits can be moved, a clever way to futureproof. The museum also hosts plenty of events, which complement the space.

“Each element is specifically curated to be its own standalone piece, or it can be linked into the entire exhibition. Bordering Realities is the overarching theme,” Liam explained.

As you walk through the three galleries of the flagship exhibition, you will meet some of Monaghan’s most famous sons and daughters. Barry McGuigan, Tommy Bowe, Ardal O’Hanlon and Caitriona Balfe all donated some of their most famous on-screen outfits to the museum.

Liam interviewed them all – he wasn’t even slightly starstruck by the actress from Tydavnet that he’s known all his life, but he couldn’t say the same for museum staff though who clearly watched Outlander! Enthusiasm, dedication and passion are what made the museum crew so good at their jobs, he added.

Our tour ended at the soldier known as ‘The Forgotten Hero,’ from World War I - Thomas Hughes, born in 1885 in rural Castleblayney. He was awarded the Victoria Cross for his bravery during the Battle of the Somme, France, where despite being wounded he killed two German gunners, thus saving his comrades. Liam was really struck by the soldier’s story.

The Irish Catholic, who joined the British Army to earn a wage, was branded a traitor upon his return home to a changed Ireland. Private Hughes was later promoted to the rank of Corporal and his Victoria Cross, the highest British military honour, is on loan to the Monaghan County Museum from the British Army Museum in London.

He died in Carrickmacross in 1942 aged 56 and is buried in Broomfield Cemetery, Castleblayney.

“I grew up on the Border, believing the Border was bad, that Monaghan wasn’t a place that people went to, and nothing really interesting happened here,” says Liam, adding he is delighted to admit that he was wrong.