Irish Republican History Museum
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A private not-for-profit little museum in West Belfast, just off the Falls Road. As the name suggests it focuses entirely on the Republican/Nationalist/Catholic side of the sectarian divide in Northern Ireland, and in particular the “Troubles”. So don’t expect any attempt at something like a balanced presentation here.
>Combinations with other dark destinations
More background info: The “Eileen Hickey Irish Republican History Museum”, to give it its full official name, which includes the name of the founder and main collector who made the museum possible, is relatively young. It was opened only in 2007, a year after Eileen Hickey herself had died in 2006 aged 58. But she had campaigned for the museum for years and amassed a vast collection of artefacts, documents, pictures and whatnot.
She was herself part of the “Troubles” history, having been imprisoned in Armagh Women’s Gaol, between 1973 and 1977, and also through her role as “Officer Commanding” in the Provisional IRA. This partly explains the museum’s strong focus on the role of women in general with regard to the Republican struggle.
Today’s museum is run by volunteers on a not-for-profit bases (admission is free) and in addition to the museum exhibition also offers a library and various charitable services such as counselling, youth development, welfare and rights advice, family support and more.
And the exhibition remains a growing one. New donations of items that fit into the museum’s mission are still being accepted and added to the exhibition.
The museum is located in the Conway Mill Complex, a refurbished and redeveloped former linen spinning mill factory, that now also houses NGOs, artists’ studios and an education centre, amongst other things. Textile mills were once common in West Belfast and used to provide a large proportion of local employment. But these days they are mostly gone. Conway Mill at least survives as the original building, which dates back to the beginning of the 20th century.
What there is to see: This is an old-school museum, basically a jumble room stuffed full of artefacts, documents, works or art, and so on and so forth. Everything is plainly labelled and there are also a few longer text panels. But you won’t find anything as slick as audio guides or interactive screens here that so many modern museums seem to be obliged to feature.
Near the entrance you are greeted by a “Republican Women’s Role [sic!] of Honour”, that lists the names of women who died in the “Troubles” conflict between 1971 and 1992, many of them by having been shot dead by the police, the army or Unionists, though there are also many whose cause of death is given as “died in a premature explosion”, so in bombing acts that went wrong. This happened an astonishingly large number of times, in fact.
One of the first exhibits you see is also at the same time the museum’s largest and most coveted: a reconstruction of Eileen Hickey’s cell in the Armagh Women’s Gaol, involving the original bed and cell door and also an original mirror. Whether the guitar parked on the bed was also hers originally, I don’t know. On display are also photos of the old prison, which was built in the late 18th century and closed in 1986. Exhibits in this section include yet more items retrieved from the prison, such as part of the its alarm system.
The exhibition does not just cover the times of the “Troubles”, parts also go back as far as the later 18th century, including guns, cannonballs and handcuffs from that era. But generally there’s a lot more focus on the modern history of the Republicans of Ireland in the 20th century (see Northern Ireland and Republic of Ireland).
Concrete artefacts include quite a number of weapons used in the conflict, from both sides, and range from simple rifles to modern machine guns and rocket-propelled grenade launchers (even a Russian-made one!). There are lots of personal items too, such as letters, medals, photos and drawings, and much more.
Remarkable are also a few items of clothing, like a shirt worn by a Republican volunteer who was shot here in the Clonard district of West Belfast (see Falls Road) in 1942, as well as a shirt worn by Mairéad Farrell. She was part of a group of Provisional IRA members who were planning a car-bomb attack on British targets in Gibraltar, but were shot dead by SAS soldiers (who had received a tip-off) while still surveying the location. As they were unarmed at the time and apparently tried to surrender themselves (as witnesses reported), the case was highly controversial. Moreover, just weeks later at their funeral the mourners came under attack by a Unionist paramilitary member who shot three people dead and wounded several more (see Milltown Cemetery).
Much coverage at this museum goes to the prisons in which IRA members were interned, including many male ones especially at Long Kesh, aka Maze Prison, in the infamous H-blocks, where the hunger strikes of 1981 also took place. There is a model of an H-block and another of other prison buildings together with some blocks of stone from the original prison walls. There’s also a shirt of the sort prisoners had to wear inside Crumlin Road Gaol. Moreover there are several full-size mannequins wearing all sorts of uniforms, including an RUC one.
Text and photo panels outline key events of the “Troubles”, from Bloody Sunday in Derry/Londonderry (see Museum of Free Derry), the Falls Curfew (see Falls Road), Operation Demetrius (the mass internment of suspected IRA supporters by the British Army) and more. The 1981 hunger strike is naturally covered as well, and it is made clear that this was by no means the only hunger strike during the “Troubles” – there were numerous others and women did it too. The issue of the use of plastic bullets is also brought up, naturally, and several are on display, also CS gas canisters used by the police and army against protesters.
Less directly Troubles-related exhibits include works of art made by prisoners, ranging from elaborate playing harps to model gypsy caravans, as well as paintings and drawings.
You can also see large numbers of various badges – including one that sarcastically proclaims “help the Police, beat yourself up.”
Newspaper clippings, political posters, material from political campaigns and such things complement the exhibition. More surprising than those items are the displays of a few teddy bears (don’t ask me why). In the back of the museum near the library part is also a large locked glass cabinet filled with many dozens of memorial cards and obituaries for “fallen” Republicans.
All in all, the exhibition is jam-packed with all manner of remarkable things, though presented in a rather higgledy-piggledy way so you can easily lose track of something like a thematic thread. Yet it is a rich and at times endearing collection. Content-wise, or message-wise, it all obviously remains more than just a little biased towards the Republican side of the story – just as you would expect, given the museum’s name. If you want a more balanced and more modern approach to the topic of the “Troubles” you can find that at the Ulster Museum in South Belfast!
Location: in West Belfast, towards the rear of the Conway Mill Complex on Conway Street, just off the Falls Road, between the Solidarity Wall and the famous Bobby Sands mural.
Google Maps locator: [54.5997, -5.9505]
Access and costs: not hard to get to; free
Details: A visit to the museum is best worked into an exploration of West Belfast and especially the Falls Road, from where it is easily walkable. But you could also get a bus from the city centre (e.g. line G1 or the various 10s); get out the stop Clonard and walk back on the Falls Road for a block and a half and turn left into Conway Street. Enter the Conway Mill Complex on the right and make your way to the back of the complex where the entrance to the ground-floor museum is. It’s also signposted.
Opening times: Tuesday to Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., closed Mondays and Sundays.
Admission is free (but donations are welcome).
Time required: depends very much on how deep your interest in Republican history runs. For me as an outsider who has some but not an all-consuming interest in the topic, just under 45 minutes was sufficient. But others with a keener interest in every little detail may need significantly longer.
Combinations with other dark destinations: see under West Belfast and Belfast in general.
The most natural combination is obviously that with the nearby Falls Road and its legendary murals.
While the Irish Republican History Museum is one element of why the Republican side in general manages to get its side of the story across better than the Unionist side does, theirs isn’t completely uncommodified either. I spotted the ACT HQ in the Unionist Shankill district. The acronym stands for Action for Community Transformation, an initiative to facilitate the “civilianization” of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Amongst other things, ACT works for the reintegration of former political prisoners. Their HQ building, however, also has a historical exhibition, which is in theory open for all. Unfortunately I did not get to see this, though I would have liked to. But I hadn’t been aware of this place beforehand and sadly you can’t just rock up for a spontaneous visit. You have to book a time slot for a visit online in advance (between 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m., weekdays only; the fee for individual visits is 5 GBP; address: 178-180 Shankill Road). If I ever get back to Belfast yet another time, I will definitely prearrange this.
Finally, if you want to see an attempt at presenting the story of the “Troubles” in a well-balanced and contemporary form, go to the Ulster Museum, which has an excellent such subsection about that subject.
Combinations with non-dark destinations: nothing much in the immediate vicinity – but see under Belfast in general.
