PASSAGE WEST MARITIME MUSEUM

Bringing the Maritime Heritage of Cork Harbour Alive

The initial impetus for a maritime themed museum in Passage West, Co. Cork was launched by local historian Jim Murphy in January 2015. Writing to several news publications he put forward the case that Passage West would be the natural home for a maritime museum.

The town was the original location of the Port of Cork until the late 1800s and predates Belfast as the home of Ireland’s steamship industry. The first steam ship constructed in Ireland was built at Hennessy Brothers shipyard in Passage in 1815.

Passage West has a strong history of seafaring, and many local families had links to the British and Irish Naval Service and the merchant Navy. The town was twice the 'beach head' for the taking of Cork City. The Duke of Marlborough’s troops landed there in 1690 as did Gen. Emmett Dalton's Irish Free State troops, during the Irish Civil War in 1922.

The museum’s collection comprises a wide range of categories including maritime history, shipbuilding and associated trades, emigration, US naval presence in Cork Harbour, the Cork Blackrock & Passage Railway, folklife, social and political history and accounts relating to famous personalities.

The town of Passage West, in Southern Ireland, boasts an impressive industrial heritage dating back over 300 years. Known as ‘the original port of Cork’ it was the birthplace of the first steamship built in Ireland, ‘The City of Cork’, which was constructed in 1815 on the site of where the Museum now stands. It was also the port from which The Sirius, the first ship to cross the Atlantic entirely under steam, left in 1838 under the command of local man Captain Richard Roberts.

And of course, Passage West and its shipbuilding industry is probably best known through its association with the Royal Victoria Dockyard, which provided so much employment to its townspeople throughout the years.

In February 2017 a motion to formally establish a museum was unanimously agreed upon and thus the concept of a maritime museum to service the Passage West area was formalised. The town now has a permanent home in which to store and display the wide variety of rare artefacts and archival material from various sources locally as well as from nearby Glenbrook, Monkstown and the general lower harbour area.

The museum’s collection extends across a range of categories such as maritime history, shipbuilding and ship repair, emigration, the US naval presence in Cork Harbour , the Cork Blackrock & Passage Railway as well as folklife, social and political history. The broad spectrum of objects on view includes historical photographs and film, documents and a wide range of ships implements and of course the stories of the generations of seamen associated with the town. While the focus of the Museum is centered upon the story of Passage West and its relationship to the sea, past exhibitions have also included other aspects of local history.