Royal Irish Academy Consultation on Museums

The Royal Irish Academy’s Culture and Heritage Working Group held a roundtable on Museums in Ireland: policies for the future on 12 November 2019.   The purpose of this roundtable was to inform the development of an Academy position paper demonstrating the potential for museums to contribute to the delivery of Heritage 2030 themes.  For this event, the Academy brought together a high-level panel of expert speakers:

Panel 1: Future Perfect?

• Chair: Dr Michael Ryan, MRIA
• Eamonn McEneaney, Director, Waterford Museum of Treasures
• Simon O’Connor, Director, Museum of Literature in Ireland
• Lynn Scarff, Director, National Museum of Ireland

Followed by Q&A and group discussion

Panel 2: Policy from the Coalface

• Chair: Professor George Sevastopulo, MRIA
• Professor Elizabeth Crooke, Professor of Heritage and Museum Studies, Ulster University
• Lesley-Ann Hayden, Independent Consultant
• Nigel Monaghan, Keeper of the National History Division, National Museum of Ireland
• Eithne Verling, Director, Galway City Museum

The ‘Museums for the future’ paper provides a flavour of the discussion from the Academy’s museums workshop and looks to better understand the issues raised by inviting your response to the questions posed within it.    Please read the paper, think about what it says, discuss it with colleagues and send us your views. You can respond to the questions by emailing your thoughts to policy@ria.ie. Please respond by 31 January 2020.  Your input will inform the development of the Academy’s final discussion paper on the future of museums.

Previous papers in Academy’s series can be viewed here

Correction: An earlier version of this paper incorrectly stated that the Irish Museums Association and Heritage Council are developing a national protocol in respect of ecclesiastical collections and archives. The Heritage Council intends to develop during 2020 a policy on cultural heritage to include object/museum/archival collections, and other expressions of intangible heritage.