MUSEUM IRELAND 2020
Some issues of museum development in Ireland north and south George Sevastopolu & Michael Ryan
Introduction
common discourse, they are often misconceived
This article is inspired by discussions within and
merely as places that contain ‘treasures’ and
hosted by the Royal Irish Academy on the past,
‘artefacts’, and present exhibitions and very little
present and future of Irish museums. These
else. In contemporary speech, the verb to curate
meetings have reflected upon developments, and
has effectively lost any connection to the work
on structural deficits, that have affected the sector
of the curator – the taking care and studying
in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and on
of things deemed worthy of preservation. This
both sides of the Irish border. Our conversations
constitutes the larger part of the traditional role
with current and recent practitioners, with people
of museums: care of collections, documentation of
working in national, regional and local museums,
material, and compiling information from people
and at Irish Museums Association conferences
with knowledge - either traditionally inherited
including that in 2020 in Athlone, confirmed what
or developed through experience - of the objects’
we already knew: that the Association has been a
intrinsic and historical value. ‘Curated’ has,
remarkable source of advice, help and advocacy;
though, become merely a vernacular way of saying
that some long-standing processes are well worth
‘picked’ or ‘selected’. It is often used of playlists
re-examining, re-supporting or modifying; and
on radio shows and even lately, in a newspaper,
that, from a cultural policy perspective, a more
one could read of a restaurant menu that referred
holistic approach to museums is required.
1 to its carefully curated cheese. This usage ignores
the etymology of the word: curare is both a Latin In this paper, we summarise some of the points
verb meaning ‘to care for’ and is also, in English,
gathered, with the aim of opening further
the name of a dangerous vegetable poison.
conversations about improvements that can be
‘Curate’, in religious usage, belongs to the same
made. Our conclusions are quite independent
family of meanings, but we can perhaps leave the
of those of the RIA and are entirely our own. We
‘cure of souls’ out of our considerations. Museums
regard this article as a starting point, and we will
have enough to do.
clarify in future commentary our suggestions for policy developments.
As places that collect, preserve and interpret the evidence of the past and present, museums are
The nature and role of the museum
simple constructs, but what they do is complex.
Museums are often regarded as simple
Care of collections is not mere warehousing.
phenomena. To many, they are primarily
Collecting, and the recording and conservation
warehouses of collected things, which are the
that are central to collections care, can give rise
archives in kind of natural and human history. In
to significant ethical and legal dilemmas – as
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