Cape CLear Museum Home Page

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Welcome to The Cape Clear Museum Society Website

Cumann Iarsmalann Chleire / Cape Clear Museum Society was set up in 1981 as a voluntary organisation to:

(1) Source, collect and preserve records concerning all aspects of Cape Clear island life.
(2) Organise the collection of artefacts of folk, farm and maritime life and see to their exhibition and preservation.
(3) Develop an Exhibition Centre and Heritage Archive to house both artefacts and documentation of island interest.

With the help of the island community, and Irish State Agencies the Cleire Museum Society has restored and equipped an old schoolhouse, which now holds a large collection of exhibition material.

Interpretative exhibition panels cover island settlement patterns, folk and farm, genealogy, folklore, place names, education, famine, telegraph and maritime history. The museum society has undertaken archaeological, geological, botanical, ornithological, and place name, genealogical surveys of the island and this material is held in the museum archive.

Events of note in the history of the island are also remembered with special anniversary commemorations, exhibitions and lectures. The Museum and Heritage Centre is open daily, June to September and thereafter by arrangement locally with the Visitor Information Bureau, Library and island Co-op Office. Island Tours by minibus and boat hire trip can also be arranged. Click here for Cape Clear Museum Events

Cartlann Chléire / Cape Clear Island Archive

Cartlann Chléire / Cape Clear Island Archive contains research material compiled since 1976 by Dr. Éamon Lankford into aspects of Cape Clear island history and heritage. From 2013 Cartlann Chléire will operate with original documentation being held at Cork County Library, Carrigrohane Road, Cork and a copy of selected material being held at Cape Clear Island (Branch) Library. The archive material is confined to Cape Clear island and Long Island Bay area and does not contain data relating to the mainland of County Cork. Staff at the Local Studies Unit in either of the above library locations will advise on what the archive contains. The Cape Clear Island Archive material will not be available for public consultation until 2013

As Cape Clear Island is the heart of the territory which was left to the O Driscoll's after the Battle of Kinsale in 1601, Cape Clear Museum and Archive has a particular interest in hearing from all who are related to the Clann O Drisceoil (O Driscoll Family Worldwide). Cape Clear Island Museum & Archive invites the submission of O Driscoll related family histories, genealogies, and career profiles for inclusion in a volume of The O Driscoll Collection. To date there are 12 volumes containing some 1,000 pages of history, stories, genealogies, obituaries, articles relating to people worldwide who bear name forms of O Driscoll, Ó Drisceoil, Driskill, Driskell etc. For further details on the O Driscoll Collection Click www.odriscoll.ie

Cape Clear Museum Archive invites the submission of documentation of any kind relating to the 1979 Fastnet Race or the race of any other year. Memories, poems, photographs, newspaper accounts, tape recordings, personal accounts, video and film material will be welcome at any time into the future for inclusion in the Museaum's Fastnet Collection. Those who have sailed at any time will be most welcome to visit the Don Cronin sculptured 1979 Fastnet Race Memorial at Cape Clear Museum and the monument at Trá Ciaráin, North Harbour, Cape Clear island.

The volumes compiled until 2009 contain newspaper and other published and unpublished accounts of the 1979 Fastnet Race as well as material submitted by relatives and friends of those who perished in the 1979 race and by participants in the race of the year, some of the volumes contain material relating to the building of the two Fastnet Lighthouses on the famous Carraig Aonair-Fastnet Rock a few miles off Cape Clear island, Co.Cork