Museum appeals for local history items

MID-ANTRIM Museum at The Braid is to play host to an exhibition on loan from Belfast City Council this coming March.

Shared History, Different Allegiance: 1912 -1914 explores the people and the events that helped to shape Belfast and the wider mid-Antrim area one hundred years ago.

To complement the exhibition, Mid-Antrim Museum will be featuring local content on the Home Rule period which is set in context with other significant issues of the day such as labour relations, gender politics, class relations, and the build up to the First World War.

Drawing from the Museum’s latest publication, New Perspectives, Politics, Religion and Conflict in Mid-Antrim 1911-1914 and recent research on the labour movement and the campaign for female suffrage in mid-Antrim ,the expanded exhibition will illustrate how the unfolding political crisis affected people in the Mid-Antrim area.

The exhibition will be brought to The Braid working in conjunction with Council’s Good Relations Unit and forms part of Ballymena Borough Council’s Decade of Centenaries 1912-1914 programming.

On display will be material from Mid-Antrim Museum’s collection as well as items from other lending institutions and private collectors.

The Museum would be very interested to hear from members of the public who would have relevant material available for display in this thought- provoking exhibition.

Of key interest would be items relating to the Home Rule crisis, the labour movement and female suffrage. All material would need to have been created and used in the 1912-1914 period.

Any items selected for inclusion should be available for loan during the months of March – June 2013 inclusive.

If you think you can help, please contact Shirin Murphy, Assistant Curator, before Friday 22nd February, on tel: 028 25635977 or email [email protected].

The Shared History, Different Allegiances exhibition is supported through the OFMDFM and will be on display at The Braid from 9th March to 26th June in the 2nd floor exhibition gallery of Mid-Antrim Museum.

The New Perspectives publication is available from the Tourist Information Centre at the Braid, prices £9.99. For further information on the Home Rule period in Mid-Antrim visit www.thebraid.com/museum