Ireland Reaching Out (IrelandXO), is delighted to welcome Tower Museum to its Partner Network is looking forward to connecting members of the Diaspora with the counties of Northern Ireland.
Tower Museum
Located within the historic city walls of Derry~Londonderry the Tower Museum is a must-see visitor attraction. With permanent exhibitions at the museum including ‘The Story of Derry’ and ‘An Armada Shipwreck – La Trinidad Valencera’, and a temporary exhibition space, the Tower Museum should be top of your list for places to visit.
The award-winning Museum hosts an array of original archives, objects, art and models linked to the history of the city. It is an opportunity to explore the development of the city from an island in the Foyle, through to the turbulent seventeenth century, the growth of the city and shipbuilding and emigration to the twentieth century and Partition and the Troubles. The galleries include an array of objects linked to the city’s cultural, music and sporting heritage.
The museum also boasts an open air viewing facility in the heart of the city centre with stunning panoramic views of the city and River Foyle.
Bernadette Walsh, Archivist at Tower Museum, says:
“The Tower Museum has a very similar outlook to Ireland Reaching Out. We are very much about sustainability, promoting our genealogy and archive collections to encourage people to access and engage with our programmes and to promote tourism to the local areas. We are unique in that we are the only local authority archive service in Northern Ireland outside of the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, Belfast. We get a lot of people visiting that want to investigate their own family history as well as research students, academics and film companies.
As part of Derry City & Strabane District Council, the Tower Museum is strongly associated with the Council’s region, we will be working with partners and volunteers all across Northern Ireland to promote the wider region as part of this project with Ireland Reaching Out. Ideally, we will eventually have partners joining from all across the island of Ireland to build on the momentum.”
Archives & Genealogy
The Tower Museum is unique in Northern Ireland offering an Archive & Genealogy service which is responsible for the preservation, interpretation and creation of access to the civic records of the Council and its predecessors.
The collection constitutes an extremely valuable source of information both for the history of the North-West region and the Council. The collections provide a comprehensive record of the city’s development from the latter half of the seventeenth century to the present day.
The extensive archive collection consists of minute books, legal documents, architectural drawings and plans and private collections. This material ranges from business collections, and items relating to industry, shirt factories, railways, political movements and social history. The Genealogical collections, in partnership with the Irish Family History Foundation, includes a database of over one million records including traditional family history records such as birth, marriage and death records. A database of over one million records, dating from 1642 to 1922, created, between 1982 and 2007 as a project of the Inner City Trust, from the major civil and church registers of the city and county of Derry~Londonderry and Inishowen, County Donegal is now available at www.derry.rootsireland.ie
For all queries regarding tickets, admissions and opening hours please contact tower@derrystrabane.com
We hope you have found the information we have shared helpful. While you are here, we have a small favour to ask. Ireland Reaching Out is a non-profit organisation that relies on public funding and donations to ensure a completely free family history advisory service to anyone of Irish heritage who needs help connecting with their Irish place of origin. If you would like to support our mission, please click on the donate button and make a contribution. Any amount, big or small, is appreciated and makes a difference.