Uisce agus Beatha – Water & Life: Galway Maritime Exhibition
Galway City Heritage Office has organised an exhibition of old photographs associated with maritime and water heritage at Galway City Museum/ Musaem Cathrach. The exhibition coincides with the Volvo Ocean Race which will have its final stage in Galway (June 30th to July 8th) and will continue until September 2012.
The exhibition will be officially opened on Thursday 5th of July 2012 at 3pm by the Mayor of Galway, Terry O’Flaherty. The exhibition is funded by the Heritage Council as an action of the Galway City Heritage Plan, with additional funding from Galway City Museum and Foras na Gaeilge. The exhibition is bilingual and is accompanied by an illustrated catalogue.
It is also intended to display the exhibition during Heritage Week/Seachtain na h-Oidhreachta, where all photographs received from the public will also be on display. The exhibition will also be used in local schools, community centres and libraries. In addition to the fifty photographs which have been enlarged for the exhibition, nearly three hundred other scanned photographs (from Brian McGrath, www.galwayships.com) are being exhibited in a slide-show presentation.
A small catalogue has been printed and the images will also be featured in the Heritage Office Publication Galway’s Heritage/ Oidhreacht na Gaillimhe Autumn/ Winter 2012. While there are thousands of historic images which could have been chosen for the exhibition, it was decided to concentrate on amateur images which have a unique story behind them, a sort of 'people’s history' is what has emerged.