Clare Museum is to receive Interim Accreditation Status under the Heritage Council’s Museum Standards Programme for Ireland. The programme is designed to improve all areas of museum practice across the whole museum, including museum management, public services and collection management.
Clare Museum now joins an elite band of museums of all types that have achieved accreditation at some level, including National institutions and small volunteer-led organisations.
The Accreditation programme comprises 34 agreed minimum standards. Twenty-five of these are required to achieve interim accreditation, while the remaining nine standards are required for full accreditation. New Collection, Loan, Exhibition and Disposal Policies were recently adopted by Clare County Council as part of the process along with a Strategic Management Plan, which will help to develop the museum for the next three years.
John Rattigan, curator of Clare Museum, stated that ‘the remaining standards required for full accreditation will be pursued by the staff and volunteers at the museum over the next sixteen months with a view to achieving full accreditation in two years time.’
Clare Museum will be officially presented with its Interim Accreditation status at a function in Dublin in July.
Meanwhile, Clare Museum is currently displaying a small but interesting exhibition on the Clare Senior and Junior All-Ireland hurling teams which both won their respective All-Ireland Hurling Championships in 1914. Admission is free.
A native of Ennis, Colin McGann has been editor of The Clare Champion since August 2020. Former editor of The Clare People, he is a journalism and communications graduate of Dublin Institute of Technology.