Renovation work on Moate Museum gets funding boost
Amidst what seems like a torrent of bad news, a grant of €81,000 for Moate Museum has been hailed this week as “one tiny piece of happiness and something to look forward to.”
They were the words of a delighted Rose McQuillan, Deputy Chairperson of Moate Museum and Historical Society on foot of the funding boost from the Town and Village Renewal Scheme which will facilitate what she described as a “badly needed renovation” of their home, the town's former Bridewell, adjacent to the old Moate Courthouse, now the town's library.
Dating back to 1834, the former jail premises still has the old cells intact, a forge, a warden's office, a kitchen, and exercise yards where a huge amount of Moate artifacts, material, machinery, and historical items relating to the town are housed.
“Having got the grant, our goal is as much as possible to conserve and repair what's there.
“Whenever we can have visitors again, and hopefully that is soon; it will be a place of memories where we can look back and forward,” Rose told the Westmeath Independent.
The authentic plasterwork will be restored as part of the work and the wooden floors repaired, something Rose stressed must be done “faithfully” to preserve such a historical building.
In situ there since 1988, Moate Museum opens for heritage events or by appointment, but it is Rose's hope that when the work is complete, and Covid restrictions banished that the public will be invited in to see their collection in their newly renovated home.
On the importance of Friday's news, Rose quoted our President Michael D Higgins: “He is concerned, and it is something that stuck with me, that 'heritage is part of the community, and the community is part of the heritage' and I would like to imagine that this project reflects that because the Bridewell and Moate Courthouse (now home to Moate Library) are some of Moate's most significant buildings”.
She and the group are hugely thankful to Westmeath County Council, Director of Services, Barry Kehoe, and Heritage Office Melanie McQuade for all their help to get the grant which will help preserve the museum building and its contents for future generations.
“When the work is completed it would be wonderful to open and invite the public in to see the building at its best,” she ends, something that certainly is a diary date to look forward to in the, hopefully, not too distant future.