The Craggaunowen Museum at the National Institute for Higher Education (NIHE) Limerick, displaying objects collected by John and Gertrude Hunt is officially opened.
A native of Newmarket-on-Fergus in County Clare, John Hunt and his wife Gertrude, amassed the most comprehensive collection of Celtic and Medieval antiquities outside the National Museum of Ireland and the Ulster Museum.
Some 700 items from the Hunt Collection ranging from the Stone Age to the 20th century are on display in the Craggaunowen Museum at NIHE Limerick which was officially opened by Minister for Industry, Commerce and Energy Des O’Malley. The collection is the biggest and most valuable gift to be given in trust to the Irish nation since those of Hugh Lane and Chester Beatty.
Artefacts on show include the Galway Chalice dating from 1633, the 17th century Cashel Pyx and the 9th century Cashel Bell, one of the two largest known of its kind, the other being the Lough Lane Bell in the National Museum in Dublin.
Also on display is a priceless 12th century lime wood Madonna, still with much of its original paint, believed to have come from a pilgrim church on the lower Rhine. Another Madonna from the 14th century is made from burgundian stone.
During his lifetime, John Hunt, who died in 1976, was adviser to important collectors and collections and a consultant on medieval and early Celtic religious art to Sotheby’s in London. His great desire was to locate items of Irish interest around the world and return them to Ireland. He refused many lucrative offers from international collectors and refused to allow the collection to be dispersed.
The entire Hunt Collection of almost 2,000 objects was subsequently housed in the Hunt Museum in the Customs House in Limerick, officially opening in 1997.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 17 April 1978. The reporter is Tom MacSweeney.
