The country's oldest local authority museum is to undergo a programme of works which will see the roof and external render of the building removed and refurbished.
Officially opened on 4 April 1945, the Cork Public Museum in Fitzgerald Park has since amassed more than 60,000 objects that cover around 7,000 years of human habitation in Cork, from pre-history and modern times.
The 80-year-old museum attracts some 60,000 visitors annually.
The total cost of the project will be €626,000 which includes a €114,000 grant from the Government's Historic Structures Fund.
The works, which are funded by Cork City Council and the Historic Structure Fund of the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, are due to be carried out throughout this coming spring and summer.
The museum will remain open as usual, though there may be minor disruption on certain days depending on certain works being undertaken.
Originally known as the Shrubberies, the mid-19th century building housed Cork's first public museum - the Fitzgerald Park Municipal Museum - between 1910 and 1924.
Following the burning of Cork's City Hall by the Black and Tans during the War of Independence in 1920, the building became the headquarters for the city's municipal operations until the re-opening of the City Hall 16 years later.
The museum's first curator was one of the country's leading archaelogists of the day, Professor Michael J O'Kelly, from the Department of Archaelogy at University College Cork.
As the museum celebrates its 80th birthday this year, a major exhibition marking the 100th anniversary of the unveiling of the Cork War Memorial in 1925 on the South Mall opens this week.
The exhibition will also include a number of important objects including a recently purchased copy of The Last General Absolution of the Munsters at Rue du Bois, as well as personal items belonging to people depicted in the painting.
Meanwhile the Lord Mayor of Cork, Councillor Dan Boyle, will host a ceremony at the Cork War Memorial which is dedicated to all Cork men who died in World War I this coming Sunday at 1.30pm.
