Isn’t it about time that historic Kilkenny reclaimed its archaeological treasures from the National Museum of Ireland and re-established a local museum in the city? Here, Christiann Corlett recounts how the Kilkenny Archaeological Society established its own museum as far back as 1849 but having painstakenly collected so many items mainly of local origin, gave them all into the safe keeping of the National Museum in 1910
The Kilkenny Archaeological Society (now the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland) was established in February 1849, and among its many early ambitions was to establish a museum in the city. By September of that year the founding members, in particular Rev. James Graves, approached the Corporation for permission to use a room in the Tholsel, and proposed to fit it up as a museum. The Society took the radical view that collections of archaeological objects should not be held in the ‘cabinets of private individuals’, but made publicly accessible in county museums. Graves and others were probably familiar with the fate of Redmond Anthony’s personal museum in Piltown, which had been auctioned at Sotheby’s after his death in 1848
