Summer Opening
May – August
Tuesday – Saturday
10.00am – 5pm
Sunday
12.00pm – 5pm
Last admission 4.00pm
Closed Mondays (except Bank Holidays)
Winter Opening
Monday – Friday
10.30am – 4.00pm
Last admission 3.30pm
Other times by appointment
Andrew Ward Inishowen Development Partnership, Seamus Carey Museum committee member, Norwegian Ambassador to Ireland Mari Skåre, Seamus Bovaird Museum committee member, Ken Doherty Museum committee member, Karl Vekins Museum committee member
The Norwegian Ambassador to Ireland, Mari Skåre, visited the museum on 26 July 2021 to renew the connections made
by her predecessor, Else Berit Eikeland, with cultural interests in Inishowen and to formally launch a new Norwegian exhibition, “The Vikings “,
The previous ambassador had arranged the loan, from the Fram Museum, Oslo, of the exhibition, “Cold Recall – Roald Amundsen’s expedition to the South Pole”.
This had been replaced by the new exhibition, but Covid precautions had prevented an official launch, earlier, so Ambassador Skåre did the honours on this visit.
The exhibition will be on display until Spring 2022, when it is hoped to replace it by an exhibition on the Spanish Armada.
This year is the 50th anniversary of the discovery of “La Trinidade Valencera” by Derry sub-Aqua Club, in Kinnago Bay but Covid has delayed this commemoration too.
Ambassador Skåre met with representatives of Inishowen’s four secondary schools, the Inishowen Traditional Music Project and with some traditional boatbuilders and sailors to re-start some of the Embassy projects.
She will be returning in the Autumn to progress the projects.
On Thursday last, the Norwegian ambassador, Else Berit Eikeland, visited McDonald Boats, in Greencastle, to officially launch a programme of exchange projects between 2 districts in Norway and several organisations in Inishowen.
The projects have been co-ordinated by the Inishowen Maritime Museum, in Greencastle.
The first project involves exchanges between Inishowen & Norwegian traditional boat building enthusiasts. The museum has been granted funding by the Fishing Local Areas Group (FLAG) to restore two traditional fishing boats, a drontheim and a half-decker, in McDonald Boats. During the restorations boatbuilders from Trondheim Maritime Museum & Boatbuilding Centre will visit Greencastle to take part in the restoration work. Next year, local boatbuilding enthusiasts will visit Trondheim to take part in a similar project there.
The other project involves educational programmes involving the 5 secondary schools in Inishowen and schools in the Bergen district of Norway. The projects will have maritime and environmental themes. Teachers from Scoil Mhuire, Buncrana, have been invited to Bergen, in March, to tease out the finer details with schools in the Bergen area.
It is also hoped to widen the programme to include a connection around traditional fiddling in the Norway, Western Isles of Scotland and Donegal. The Hardanger fiddle is both a musical instrument and a technique. Fiddling traditions and methods in Donegal are unique in Ireland and are closer to Islay than to Mayo. The methodology is thought to stem from Norwegian techniques that travelled to the Faroes and down the Scottish Islands to Donegal. A partner group in Inishowen has been identified and the Ambassador will be seeking a Norwegian counterpart to move forward with them.
In separate developments, the director of the “Coastal Heritage Week” programme in Norway has been liaising with Donegal Tourism and Inishowen maritime heritage groups to promote coastal tourism in Donegal, based on the successful Norwegian model.
The Norwegian district council is applying for EU trans-national funding for a project around the heritage & culture of the trade routes between Norway, the Faroes, the Western Isles and Donegal. This could link with a trans-Atlantic programme between Inishowen, Newfoundland and the Canadian maritime communities currently being developed.
This year’s Blessing of the Fleet at Greencastle will include a very special event which will commemorate those from Inishowen who lost their lives at sea. The Inishowen Maritime Museum has been working tirelessly over the last year to update the existing memorial and ensure that all those who tragically lost their lives in the waters around us will be remembered. The existing memorial was unveiled in 1997 by President Mary Robinson. As further research was carried out over the years it was realised that many more had lost their lives at sea that had not been previously recorded on the memorial. Realising how significant it was for the families who had lost loved ones it was decided that new panels would be installed to include anybody who had not been included before.
Keep up to date with the programme, book tickets for the events and keep up to date with the events and scheduling of the first ever ‘May the 4th by with you’ festival in Malin Head here….
Kjell Magnus Økland will be organising visits by Norwegian traditional boat builders and maritime heritage enthusiasts to Ireland over the coming season.
Kjell is a journalist, photographer, film maker & webmaster and has been an organizer and promoter of cultural and maritime events for more than 25 years. He sails both traditional and modern boats.
Kjell, and his family, will be visiting Inishowen on 25, 26 & 27th February for a preliminary tour of maritime culture and heritage promoters in Donegal and will be based at the Inishowen Maritime Museum, Greencastle.
Kjell is the managing director of the Coastal Heritage Weeks Foundation.
In November 1912, Roald Amundsen, the Norwegian polar explorer, delivered a lecture to the Royal Geographic Society, London, describing his expedition to the South Pole.
The lecture was accompanied by slide photographs taken on the expedition. The quality and clarity of the photography is amazing.
The Fram Museum, Bygdøy, Oslo, is dedicated to telling the story of Norwegian polar exploration.
In 2006, the negatives of Amundsen’s polar collections were donated to a public / private partnership in Norway and are archived in the Norwegian National Library.
The Fram Museum used this access to create exhibitions, and accompanying book, about Amundsen’s polar expeditions. Using the original photographs and notes and reports of the expeditions, the museum has created an entertaining and informative display.
The book by Guy Warner covers WW1 naval aviation in Inishowen. Its main emphasis is on the United States Naval Air Station “Lough Foyle” at Ture, with pictures and stories of seaplanes, base and personnel and descriptions of the interaction between base personnel and the local community.
It also covers the Royal Navy kite balloon service in Lough Swilly, the USNAS meteorological station at Malin Head and the testing out of Ballylifen as a mooring out station for Royal Naval Air Service dirigible balloons.
Cost- €12.00
P&P – Ireland €2.50 Europe- €3.70 Other- €4.80
We have update our facebook page and we would really appreciate it if you could give us a ‘LIKE’ @ Inishowen Maritime Museum & 
Planetarium 🙂 Thank you.