Jackie Clarke Collection opens to public

Jackie Clarke Collection opens to public


Anton McNulty
antonmcnulty@mayonews.ie

Over 400 years of extraordinary Irish history was opened up to the public this week with the opening of the Jackie Clarke Collection in Ballina.
The priceless collection of Irish historical memorabilia and materials will go on permanent public display in a new exhibition centre at the former Provincial Bank buildings on Pearse Street from today (Tuesday).
The lifetime collection of the late Jackie Clarke which comprises of over 100,000 items including an original copy of the 1916 Easter Proclamation and a cockade affixed to the hat of 1798 leader Wolfe Tone will go on display to the public for the first time.
The opening of the Jackie Clarke Collection has been a collaboration of many years work by the Clarke family in ensuring his collections were put on display. Initially it was planned to display the collection in the local library but the scale and importance of the collection ensured a larger building was required which led to the purchase by Mayo County Council of the old bank building.
A fish merchant from Ballina and former Town Councillor, Jackie Clarke started collecting items when he was only 12 years old and the collection grew to over 100,000 items which retell Ireland’s struggle for freedom. The items include fragile maps, rare newspapers, political posters and editorial cartoons, books, diaries, photographs and films.
Other items include a 1916 letter from the commander of Kilmainham jail, asking a priest named Father Aloysius to visit the Easter Rebellion leader Padraic Pearse before his execution and a 1910 poster advertising a talk by, James Connolly, at Cavanagh’s Restaurant in New York City.
The task of collaborating all of these items which were kept in a ‘locked room’ in the Clarke home unseen by even his family fell to author, curator and historian Sinéad McCoole, who arrived in Ballina eight years ago.
Ms McCoole has been appointed the Manager of the Collection and what she found in the collection was said to have mesmerised historians and antiquarians.
“There were multiple collections within the collections,” Ms McCoole said of the collection. “It took years to yield the secrets.”
Jackie Clarke died aged 72 in 2000 and his son Peter, an Independent councillor with Ballina Town Council praised the work Ms McCoole put in bringing the collection to fruition.
“Sinéad McCoole  has done great work over the last eight years. Ballina are very lucky to have her,” he said a recent Ballina Town Council meeting.
The story of the collection and the vast array of Irish historical material has made headlines throughout the world and an extensive article on the story of the collection appeared in New York Times recently.
In the article, the author Dan Barry wrote, “Now visitors to the building can see Wolfe Tone’s cockade, or trace their ancestral home place on ancient maps, or record their memories of Mayo in a sound booth. They can step into the bank’s old vault to study its only display: the 1916 Easter Proclamation, one of only three dozen or so still extant.”
“Three pages in The New York Times about the collection - you can’t pay for that type of promotion. It got the word out to the Irish Diaspora and there was a big reaction from it,” Peter explained.
The Jackie Clarke will be officially opened by Taoiseach Enda Kenny at a later date, but is open to the public from today, Tuesday, from 10am to 5pm, Tuesdays to Saturdays, with free admission.

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