Peacemakers Museum opens in Derry's Bogside

The public opening of Derry's Peacemakers Museum has taken place today, 22nd July.

The Peacemakers Museum has been developed by Gasyard Development Trust and supported by two National Lottery Heritage Fund award totalling £499,977: an award of £250,000 for phase one in 2019 and a phase two award of £249,977 in 2022.

The new museum is located in the Gasyard Centre in Derry's Bogside, an area that witnessed some of the key events of the conflict in Northern Ireland, including the Battle of the Bogside and Bloody Sunday, and includes artefacts and archive footage, oral history interviews with fifty local residents and installations on local landmarks including Free Derry Wall and the former Rossville flats.

It will enable visitors to learn of the story of the Bogside community during the period from August 1972 to May 2007, including the many ways its people contributed to the transition from conflict to peace.

Visitors will discover the role of women and young people in moving society forward, with insights into women’s rights, trade unionism and LGBTQ+ experiences, as well as the role of culture and sport in the community. The museum also covers the roles of former deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, Nobel Peace laureate John Hume, and former Speaker of the Assembly Mitchel McLaughlin in the development of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, which provided a political template for resolving the conflict and a future which could be determined on the principle of consent.

For further information, visit the Peacemakers Museum's website.