Council Welcomes New Curator to Down County Museum

Newry, Mourne and Down District Council is delighted to welcome Noreen Cunningham as the new Museum Curator for Down County Museum.

Noreen is a seasoned professional with over 25 years of curatorial experience. Prior to working in the museum sector, she worked for several years as an archaeologist on excavations throughout Ireland as well as extensive field surveys of hundreds of archaeological sites within Northern Ireland.

She has a degree in Archaeology and Social Anthropology from Queen’s University and an MSc in Cultural Management from the University of Ulster. From 1992–1993 she held a Research Fellowship at the Institute of Irish Studies, QUB, in the ‘Industrial Heritage of Northern Ireland’.

From 2009–2010 Noreen was seconded to the Northern Ireland Museums Council (NIMC) as Assistant Director and was involved in a wide range of work including providing advice to the local museum sector, assessing grant-applications to NIMC’s funding streams as well as being involved in several discrete research projects on various aspects of the museum sector in Northern Ireland.

Speaking about the new appointment, Newry, Mourne and Down District Council Chairperson, Councillor Cathy Mason said, “I congratulate Noreen on her appointment as Curator to Down County Museum, an extension to her current role as Curator of Newry and Mourne Museum.  She has a wealth of experience and an ambition to drive forward the growth of the Council’s museums’ service in Newry and Downpatrick over the coming years.  The Council is fully committed to the continuous improvement and development of our two museums. Through the work of dedicated museum officers, including our Curator, Down County Museum and Newry and Mourne Museum both provide a high-quality visitor experience, receive very positive reviews from visitors, offer excellent education programmes for local school groups and have a strong connection to our local communities.  I welcome Noreen’s appointment and the important work of the museums in contributing to the culture and heritage of our district.”

Noreen has been involved in the production of over thirty publications and has written extensively on diverse aspects of heritage ranging from museum topics, local history and archaeology.  These include co-authorship of ‘The Gap of the North, The Archaeology and Folklore of Armagh, Down, Louth and Monaghan’, 2001 (O’Brien Press, Dublin) and Cunningham, N. ‘A Lost Castle in Newry’, in Murray, E. and Logue, P. (eds.) 2010, Battles, Boats and Bones: Archaeological Discoveries in Northern Ireland 1987-2008. TSO Ireland for the Northern Ireland Environment Agency, Belfast.

Noreen has also served on a number of organisations and arm’s length bodies. From 2010-2013 she was chairperson of Northern Ireland Regional Curator’s Group and during the same period was a Board Member of the Northern Ireland Museum Council (a Department of Culture Arts and Leisure (DCAL), Non-Departmental Public Body). She is also currently Museum Mentor for Armagh Robinson Library in Armagh.

As curator of Newry and Mourne Museum, Bagenal’s Castle, Noreen has been involved in the restoration of Bagenal’s Castle - a scheduled monument - and oversaw the design and fit-out of the Museum prior to its opening in 2007. From 2017-2018 she planned and delivered a complete revamp of its museum galleries. She also delivered two annual temporary exhibitions with accompanying booklets, as well as a number of travelling exhibitions such as the 2015 Famine Commemoration exhibition and a 1916 exhibition. 

She has extensive experience of partnership projects with a range of institutions including cross-border projects with Louth County Museum and Louth County Archive Service.  She has worked with Northern Ireland Museums Council and National Museums Northern Ireland and is currently involved with their ‘Reimagine, Remake, Replay’ initiative, aimed at getting young people from 16-24 involved in museums.

Noreen has a proven track record of securing funding for museum projects from funders including Co-operation Ireland, East Border Region and more recently Heritage Lottery Funding for an 18 month First World War project (2014-2016) and an Esmee Fairbairn funded project (2016-2018), focusing on Newry and Mourne Museum’s Performing Arts Collection 2016-2018.

In 2021, she secured a range of funding for an exhibition and booklet exploring Newry and its hinterland’s experience of the period 1920-1930. This involved commissioning local and national historians to research aspects of the Museum collection relevant to this period and produce chapters for a book ‘The Legacy: Newry 1920 – 1930’.

In 2020, Noreen oversaw a highly successful contemporary collecting project called ‘Living in Lockdown’, which aimed to collect people’s experiences and reflections of living through the Pandemic.

More recently, Ms. Cunningham has overseen a project designed to encourage primary schools back into both museums in Downpatrick and Newry. This has involved subsidising the cost of buses for schools and has seen nearly 2,000 children benefiting from this project.