Monday 25 January 2016

First 'Troubles' Museum to open in June in Derry

The Museum of Free Derry project, which is currently being constructed at Glenfada Park in the city’s Bogside, has received additional funding of £500,000 from the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure.

This chunk of funding complements the £2.4m already received from a variety of agencies, the largest being the Heritage Lottery Fund.

Making the announcement, Culture Minister Carál Ní Chuilín said: “The Museum of Free Derry is a unique project which will tell the story of the recent history of Derry.

"It is situated right at the heart of where the traumatic events of Bloody Sunday took place and will vividly portray the impact, trauma and division of ‘the troubles’ directly, through education and the exploration of the root causes of the conflict.

“As the first museum to deal directly with ‘the troubles,’ it will also play a significant role in the ongoing debate around how events of the conflict should be suitably remembered and recorded.”

The museum currently has an archive of over 25,000 individual items, most of them donated museum by local residents, and include some items of immense historical importance. The Trust managing the project say the museum will be "the community’s story told from the community’s perspective, not the distorted version parroted by the government and most of the media over the years."

Construction work started last summer and the project is due for completion in June 2016. Its location in Glenfada Park is close to the Bloody Sunday Monument, Free Derry Corner and the Bogside Artist’s murals.