2025 Irish Museums Association Annual Conference

Wednesday 5th March, Siamsa Tíre 

09:30 – 11:00: Kerry County Museum visit (self-guided)

11:00 – 11:30: Registration and refreshments, Siamsa Tíre

11:30 – 11:45: Welcome, Helen O'Carroll, Curator, Kerry County Museums and Lar Joye, IMA Chair 

11:45 - 12:00: Conference Launch. Patrick O’Donovan TD, Minister for Arts, Media, Communications, Culture and Sport

12:00 – 12:40: Keynote Address: Dynamic collections need dynamic information. Kevin Gosling, Chief Executive, Collections Trust

12:40 - 13:30: Lunch and Optional Interactive Guided Exhibition Tour, Kerry County Museum

13:30 – 14:30: Islamic Art in Ireland: activating the collections

      ·  Anna McSweeney, Lecturer, Trinity College Dublin

      ·  Moya Carey, Curator of Islamic Collections, Chester Beatty

      ·  Diaa Lagan, Artist

14:30 – 15:00: The O’Malley Bequest: from an artists’ studio to a museum collection. Ann Chumbley, Collection Registrar and Niamh Twomey, Collection Assistant, Butler Gallery

15:00 – 16:00: From Archives to Audiences: Curating historical records for public display

Panel conversation with John Gibney, Assistant Editor, Royal Irish Academy, Zoë Reid, Keeper, National Archives, Gregory Walls, PhD Candidate, Trinity College Dublin, and Caitlin White, Research Fellow, Trinity College Dublin

16:00 – 16:30: Break

16:30 – 17:30: Historic Houses, Global Connections: Collections in Transition at Mount Stewart and Clandeboye

      ·  Briony Widdis, Research Fellow, Queen’s University Belfast

      ·  Julieanne McMahon, Cultural Heritage Curator, National Trust

      ·  Emma Reisz, Lecturer, Queen’s University Belfast

17:30 – 18:00: Snuffed out - The story of an object in transition - implications and strategies. Sian McInerney, Collections and Research Manager, The Hunt Museum

18:15 – 20:00: Reception & Highlights Tour, Kerry County Museum. Welcome by Breandán Fitzgerald, Mayor of Kerry

Thursday 6th March, Siamsa Tíre

09:00 – 09:15: Welcome, Gina O'Kelly, Director, Irish Museums Association

09:15 – 10:15: MSPI: Transforming Collections

Introduced by Lisa Shortall, Head of Research, Learning and Cultural Heritage, Heritage Council

      · Patricia O’Hare, Research and Education Officer, Muckross House

      · Helen O’Carroll, Curator, Kerry County Museum

      · Cara Trant, Executive Director, Kerry Writers' Museum

10:15 – 10:45: Break and refreshments

10:45 – 11:45: Decanting a National Collection

      ·  Jean O’Donovan, Registrar, Crawford Art Gallery

      ·  Evelyn Leon Nunez, Documentation Assistant, Crawford Art Gallery  

12:00 – 12:30: Legal and Ethical considerations of deaccession, restitution and repatriation of museum objects: an overview of national and international legal frameworks and guidelines. Martin Bradley, Barrister and Archivist

12:30 – 13:30: Lunch and Optional Gallery Talk and Workshop, Kerry County Museum

13:30 – 14:30: The Death of a Museum. Panel discussion with Lar Joye, Port Heritage Director, Dublin Port; Gillian O’Brien, Professor of Public History, Liverpool John Moores University; and Stephen Ferguson, former Curator, An Post Museum & Archive

14:30 – 15:00: Ethical and Sustainable Disposals. Clare Ablett, Curator of Transport and Industry, National Museums NI: Ulster Transport Museum 

15:00 – 15:30: Collection Policies – Mitigating The Past. Eithne Verling, Director, Galway City Museum

15:30 – 16:00: Closing comments

Friday 7th March

09:00 – 14:30: Networking opportunity - Visit to The Blasket Centre, Dingle Peninsula. Departs Kerry County Museum and returning to Tralee Station (Casement). 

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Free optional activities taking place during this year’s conference: 

Wednesday 5th March

9:00 – 11:00 Kerry County Museum Visit

14:00 – 14:25 Interactive Guided Tour: Geraldine Tralee – A vanished medieval town, Kerry County Museum

Explore Kerry County Museum’s Medieval Experience, an authentic reconstruction of Tralee in the year 1450 complete with the sounds and smells of the period. Tralee was founded in 1216 by the Fitzgerald's, a powerful Anglo-Norman family, who ruled the town until its destruction during the Second Desmond Rebellion at the end of the 16th century.

Facilitators: Claudia Kohler, Education, Community & Outreach Officer & Helena Stackpoole, Heritage Educator, Kerry County Museum

Note: Registration for this event will take at the conference’s registration desk in Siamsa Tíre on the 5th March. 

Thursday 6th March

13:00 – 13:25 Gallery Talk and Workshop: Paint and Make showcase – museums as agents for equality and inclusion in the local community, Kerry County Museum

Paint and Make is a collaborative process-led Creative Ireland project in partnership with 14 schools across Kerry culminating in a powerful showcase at Kerry County Museum. The gallery talk and workshop, taking place in the Temporary Exhibition Room in the museum, explores the methods and benefits of engaging children and young people as creative collaborators and the role museums can play in the process.

Facilitators: David Fortune, Artist & Managing Director, Me+The Moon & Hazel Ramsay, Public Engagement Assistant, Kerry County Museum

Note: Registration for this event will take at the conference’s registration desk in Siamsa Tíre on the 5th March. 

Friday 7th March

9:00 – 14:30 Networking opportunity: Visit to The Blasket Centre, Dingle Peninsula

Join us for a scenic bus tour of the Dingle Peninsula. Departing from Tralee at 9:00 am, we will travel along Slea Head to visit The Great Blasket Centre and Island. The Centre provides an insight into the unique heritage, culture, and literary legacy of the Blasket Island community. Guided by Lorcán Ó Cinnéide, Manager of the Centre, the visit will include a presentation, time to explore the exhibitions, and a short walk to the clifftop viewing platform. We will then continue to Dingle for lunch before returning to Tralee, arriving at approximately 2:30 pm.

Bus departing Kerry County Museum and returning to Tralee Station (Casement). 

Note: Advance registration for this event must be made during conference registration. 

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(per running order)

Kevin Gosling 

Kevin Gosling joined Collections Trust as Chief Executive in September 2015, having previously worked for the organisation (then the Museum Documentation Association) back in the mid-1990s. He was previously Director of Communications for Britten 100, the award-winning centenary of composer Benjamin Britten in 2013, and has also worked for the museum-planning consultants Lord Cultural Resources, the Museum of London, and in Norway and St Lucia. Most recently, Kevin has led Collection Trust’s collaboration with Art UK and the University of Leicester to create a sustainable Museum Data Service pools millions of object records and shares them as the raw material for countless public and research uses. He is a Fellow of the Museums Association.

Anna McSweeney

Dr Anna McSweeney is a lecturer in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at Trinity College Dublin, where she also serves as Director of the MPhil programme. She teaches postgraduate and undergraduate modules on topics including the Islamic manuscripts of the Chester Beatty collection (The Arts of the Book), Islamic Spain and North Africa, and Islamic Art and Architecture in the Medieval Mediterranean. Anna specialises in the western Mediterranean Islamic world, her publications include From Granada to Berlin: The Alhambra Cupola (Verlag Kettler, 2020). She was a co-investigator on the British Academy/Leverhulme-funded project Crafting Medieval Spain: The Torrijos Ceiling in the Global Museum (2021–2023). Her current project, Islamic Art in Ireland (2024–2025), funded by TCD Boost, explores ways to connect and activate Islamic art objects across the island of Ireland through teaching, display, and research.

Moya Carey

Dr Moya Carey is the Curator of Islamic Collections at the Chester Beatty in Dublin, responsible for a museum collection of c. 6,000 works produced across North Africa and West Asia. Previously, she worked as the Iran Heritage Foundation Curator for the Iranian Collections at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. She is interested in visual culture in all media, particularly the arts of the book, carpets, and metalwork, as well as the history of scientific illustration, and the cultural contexts surrounding later appropriations, re-use, collecting histories, and provenance. Her 2017 book, Persian Art: Collecting the Arts of Iran for the V&A (London: V&A), received the World Award for Book of the Year in Iran. In 2022, she curated the exhibition Meeting in Isfahan: Vision and Exchange in Safavid Iran at the Chester Beatty.

Diaa Lagan

Diaa Lagan is a multidisciplinary artist from Aleppo, Syria. He graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Aleppo in 2013, specialising in 3D modelling and modern figurative art movements. In 2015, he received a scholarship to study in Iran, where he completed studies in Farsi Language and a Master in Art Studies and research in Art University of Tehran, graduating in 2018. His scholarship project focused on traditional Islamic arts and crafts within a contemporary contexts. In 2019, Diaa travelled to Ireland for a studio residency at the Burren College of Art before taking up a Fellowship at IADT. His current practice involves creating varied interdisciplinary interventions and narratives, exploring his personal history and the fragile relationships between heritage, oral culture, and socio-political issues. In 2025, he will present an artistic response to a 15th-century Talismanic shirt from the Chester Beatty collection in an exhibition scheduled to open in May.

Ann Chumbley

Ann Chumbley is an experienced Registrar in the museums and galleries sector with a wide-ranging knowledge of collections management, loans, exhibitions, and their installation. Her knowledge encompasses documentation standards and systems, conservation standards, and collections care. Early in her career, Ann worked on the documentation, cataloguing, and transfer of the Turner Bequest collection of watercolours and sketchbooks from the British Museum to the Tate Gallery. She was involved in establishing the public study room where visitors could access the collection as well as setting up viewing facilities for the wider Tate collection of works on paper held in storage.

Niamh Twomey 

Niamh Twomey is the Collection Assistant at Butler Gallery. She holds an MA in Interdisciplinary Design Practice, which helped develop her skills in creative and collaborative problem-solving and design, with a particular focus on accessibility. Niamh has a particular interest in gateways of engagement in the arts through sensory responses. She uses her expertise to evaluate an artworks and create tools to assist the audience in engaging with the work.  She is brining a new perspective to established collections management practices.

John Gibney

John Gibney is Assistant Editor with the Documents on Irish Foreign Policy (DIFP) programme and is one of the editors of the DIFP series. A graduate of Trinity College Dublin (BA, PhD), he has held postdoctoral fellowships at the University of Notre Dame and the University of Galway. John has worked extensively across the academic, heritage, and publishing sectors and has written widely on Irish history and historiography. He is the author of A Short History of Ireland, 1500–2000 (Yale University Press, 2017; revised edition, 2025) and is among the co-authors of Ireland: A Voice Among the Nations (Royal Irish Academy, 2019). John was also a co-curator of the major international exhibition presented by the National Archives in partnership with the Royal Irish Academy, marking the centenaries of both the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 and Irish membership of the League of Nations in 1923.

Zoë Reid

Zoë Reid is an accredited conservator who established the Conservation Department at the National Archives of Ireland in 2002. Since then, she has overseen the long-term preservation of the national collection, ensuring secure public access. Over the past 20 years, her work has been widely published in conservation journals, and she has presented at several international conferences. In 2022, Zoë joined the senior management team as Keeper of Manuscripts, overseeing Public Services and Collection Care. In the past decade, Zoë has led various conservation, preservation, and digitisation projects. Among these are projects including Decade of Commemorations initiatives including exhibitions such as The Treaty 1921, The Story of a Building, Ireland at the League of Nations, and the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland. She also co-curated the Society and State: Ireland through its Records exhibition, which attracted over 64,000 visitors during its six-month run at Dublin Castle.

Gregory Walls

Gregory Walls is a PhD student at Trinity College Dublin, working as part of Dr Anne Dolan’s IRC-funded project, Witnessing War, Making Peace: Testimonies of Revolution and Restraint in Interwar Ireland. His current research explores how the nature of crime and violence evolved, ebbed and flowed in the move from ware to peace during the 1920s and 1930s in Ireland. Gregory holds an MPhil in Public History and Cultural Heritage and has considerable experience in the heritage sector. Having previously worked as a Tour Guide at the GPO Museum and Marsh’s Library. He is currently involved with the National Archives of Ireland’s 1926 Census exhibition and public programme as a social historian and researcher. Previously, he was a researcher on the NAI’s Society & State: Ireland Through Its Records exhibition. His research interests include modern Irish social and political history, public history, and archival power and authority.

Caitlin White 

Caitlin White is a Research Fellow in the School of Education at Trinity College Dublin. She holds a PhD in Public History from Trinity, where she worked with Dr Anne Dolan on memory, monuments, and commemoration in the Irish Free State. As a public historian, Caitlin combines rigorous academic research with creative and innovative methods to engage communities in history. She has presented her work nationally and internationally at conferences on topics such as memory, commemoration, and Irish history. Her public history projects include podcasts (History Ireland Hedge School), exhibitions (Society & State), radio shows (Talking History), documentaries (The Silent Civil War), and popular history writings (History Ireland). Her most recent publication, a chapter in Space in Public History (Routledge, 2024), explores the politics of space in Dublin from 1922 to 1939. Caitlin’s research interests include social history, public history, engagement, politics and democracy, education, and modern Irish history.

Briony Widdis

Dr Briony Widdis is an anthropologist at Queen’s University Belfast who specialises in the legacies of colonialism and the British Empire in Ireland and Northern Ireland. Her work examines how these histories shape social identities and are represented in historic houses, museums, and archives. With thirty years of experience, she has held positions including Curator of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas at National Museums Scotland and Assistant Director at the Northern Ireland Museums Council. Dr Widdis is the Editor of Museum Ireland and serves on the Programming Committee of the FE McWilliam Gallery. She introduced participant autoethnography, in Ireland, as a new method for engaging communities with historically complex collections. Her research focuses on ethnographic provenance, the histories of enslavement through the Royal African Company, and decolonisation within Irish cultural institutions. She is also the co-editor of the forthcoming Museums, Empire, Colonialism: Identities, Memory and Legacies in Ireland.

Julieanne McMahon 

Julieanne McMahon is a Cultural Heritage Curator with the National Trust in Northern Ireland. She provides curatorial support to properties, focusing on collections management, conservation planning, and inclusive interpretation. Her work involves collaborating with property teams to uncover the historical significance of sites and collections, ensuring that narratives reflect both local and international connections. Julieanne leads projects across disciplines, managing acquisitions, developing funding applications, and engaging with stakeholders. With extensive experience in exhibition curation and interpretation design, she has also led volunteer-driven projects that have equipped participants with new skills in heritage research and presentation. Her academic background in Eighteenth-Century Studies, History of Art, and Visual Communications informs her creative approach to curating engaging visitor experiences.

Emma Reisz

Dr Emma Reisz is a historian at Queen’s University Belfast whose research centres on colonialism and empire in Asia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Her work focuses on Robert Hart, British imperialism in China, and the afterlives of empire in Northern Ireland, alongside an interest in photography and digital methodologies. Dr Reisz’s recent publications include China’s Imperial Eye (2017), co-authored with Aglaia De Angeli, and Competing Imperialisms in Northeast Asia (2023). She is also the co-editor of the forthcoming Museums, Empire, Colonialism: Identities, Memory and Legacies in Ireland.

Sian McInerney

Sian McInerney is the Collections and Research Manager at The Hunt Museum. In this role, she researches objects within the Hunt Collection, enhancing existing information that ultimately changes how both online audiences and museum visitors engage with the collection. With a multidisciplinary background, Sian holds a BA in Economics and Sociology, an MA in Cultural Policy & Arts Management, and an MA in Research focused on the economic impact of art and cultural events. She has managed several EU-funded projects for The Hunt Museum, including Europeana Archaeology and Art of Reading in the Middle Ages. Sian is also responsible for managing and curating the physical and digital collections of the museum, including the 3D Collection and the Sybil Connolly Collection.

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(per running order)

Lisa Shortall

Lisa Shortall is Head of Research, Learning and Cultural Heritage at the Heritage Council. For over 20 years she worked as a professionally qualified archivist in the university, local authority, and community archive sectors. Her academic background is in Folklore, Irish, and Archives, and prior to joining the Heritage Council, she lectured on the MA in Archives and Records Management programme (2022/23). Lisa’s work in the Heritage Council is wide ranging, encompassing research into all aspects of the heritage sector, and overseeing cultural heritage programming such as the Conservation Internship Programme, the Museum Standards Programme for Ireland (MSPI) and, in partnership with the National Museum of Ireland, the Irish Community Archive Network (iCAN).

Patricia O’Hare

Dr Patricia O’Hare has been Research and Education Officer for the Trustees of Muckross House CLG since 1995. She holds postgraduate degrees in Archaeology (MA, University College Dublin) and Museum Studies (MA, Leicester University). Her interests span archaeology, folk life, and social history of County Kerry. The subject of her doctoral thesis was the calendar custom of the Wren Boys of County Kerry. 

Helen O'Carroll

Helen O’Carroll, a native of Tralee, County Kerry, is the Curator of Kerry County Museum, a role she has held since 2000. She holds an MA in History (1990) and a Diploma in Arts Administration (1991), both from University College Dublin. With over 30 years of involvement in heritage projects in Kerry, she has extensive experience curating, researching, and preserving the Museum’s collections. Helen has also produced several large-scale, award-winning exhibitions. 

Cara Trant

Cara Trant has been the Executive Director of Kerry Writers' Museum in Listowel since 1999. She is a graduate of the University of Limerick and previously worked as a Development Officer for the LEADER Rural Development Programme in North Kerry. Kerry Writers' Museum, a community-owned and operated not-for-profit organisation, celebrates and promotes County Kerry's rich literary and cultural heritage through interactive audio-visual exhibits. Cara oversaw the €1.6 million development of the Museum, from its construction phase to its establishment as a dynamic community enterprise catering for visitors to Listowel and collaborating with local groups and schools to develop artistic and cultural activities.

Jean O’Donovan 

Jean O’Donovan has served as Registrar of Crawford Art Gallery since 2015. Prior to this position, she was Assistant Registrar at the National Gallery of Ireland. Jean is responsible for the preservation of the collection – both physically and digitally. Her responsibilities include managing collection documentation, storage, and all incoming and outgoing loans from the gallery.

Evelyn Leon Nunez 

Evelyn Leon Nunez joined Crawford Art Gallery in March 2024 as Documentation Assistant. Prior to this, she worked at the gallery as an assistant on the Decant Scoping Project for six months. Originally from Mexico City, Evelyn holds an MA in History and a second MA in Museum Studies from University College Cork. Her previous experience includes roles as an archival assistant in photography and architecture archives, as well as working as a tour guide in museums and historical sites in Mexico City.

Martin Bradley 

Martin Bradley is a barrister and archivist with over 25 years of experience working with galleries, libraries, archives, and museums. He holds a Diploma in Art Profession Law and Ethics (DipAPLE) from the Institute of Art & Law and is a member of the Professional Advisors to the International Art Market (PAIAM). His book, Art and Cultural Heritage Law: A Practical Guide (2024), is published by Clarus Press.

Lar Joye 

Lar Joye is Port Heritage Director at Dublin Port since 2017, responsible for the 300 year old Port Archive and the Port City Integration. He is a former curator at the National Museum of Ireland, and played a key role in the Decade of Commemorations 2012-2107. He worked closely with An Post in the creation of the GPO Witness History museum and was historical adviser for An Posts 2016 commemorative stamps. Lar is a graduate of University College Dublin, Leicester University and the Getty Leadership Institute and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Military Heritage of Ireland Trust and previously was chairman of the Irish National Committee of the Blue Shield. Lar has served on the Irish Museums Association’s board of directors since 2015 and was elected IMA Chair in October 2023.  

Gillian O'Brien

Gillian O'Brien is Professor of Public History at the Liverpool John Moores University. Gillian is the author of 'The Darkness Echoing: Exploring Ireland's Places of Famine, Death and Rebellion' (2020) and "Blood Runs Green: The Murder that Transfixed Gilded Age Chicago" (2015), and co-editor of 'Georgian Dublin' and 'Portraits of the City: Dublin and the Wider World'. She is also involved in a number of public history projects and has been the historical advisor for museum and heritage scheme including the development of Spike Island in Co. Cork, Ireland and work on Kilmainham Gaol and Courthouse in Co. Dublin and Nano Nagle Place in Cork city. As part of her work on museums and heritage centres, she has published 'Inception, Development, Operation: A Report on Best Practice for Site-Specific Museums and Heritage Centres' (2018) and 'Beyond Storytelling: Exhibiting the Past (2020). She is a member of the board of directors of the Irish Museums Association.

Stephen Ferguson 

Stephen Ferguson served as Assistant Secretary of An Post, the Irish Post Office, for many years and, until his retirement last year, was also the Curator of the An Post Museum & Archive. He has written and lectured extensively on the GPO and the history of the Post Office in Ireland, most recently curating exhibitions on the particular role of the Irish post box,  Silent Servant & Symbol of the State, and the significance of postage stamps,  Miniature Masterpieces, in promoting Irish culture and identity since independence. 

Clare Ablett 

Clare Ablett is the Curator of Transport and Industry at the Ulster Transport Museum. She is responsible for looking after numerous collections that reflect the development and growth of local industries and modes of transport across the island of Ireland. These collections encompass road vehicles, including horse-drawn carriages and bicycles, as well as aviation, maritime, and rail vehicles. Clare has curated several exhibitions at the museum, including the recent Celtic Wave, which explores the history of surfing in Ireland. She has also been the curatorial lead on one of the largest museum transport storage moves in the UK.

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