Mull museum celebrates 50 years

On February 2, 1972, a group of about 20 people gathered in the Spinning Wheel Café in Tobermory to discuss starting a museum.

An encouraging speech from the chairman for the evening, Angus MacIntyre, got things under way. It was agreed to form the Mull and Iona Folklore Museum and Duncan MacQuarrie was elected chairman, with Roddy MacNeill as vice-chairman, Alick Yule as treasurer and Chrissie MacInnes and Daisy Craig as joint secretaries. A selection of the kind of objects that might be displayed in a museum was laid out on the table, and John O’Hare commented that more items might come forward if suitable premises could be found.

At first the displays were temporary summer exhibitions in the old school, and later in the Masonic Hall. This wasn’t good for the exhibits, especially fragile documents and photographs, being spread out on tables, then packed away in members’ attics and sheds until the next year.

In 1986 permanent premises came in the shape of a store in Columba Buildings, gifted by Jessie Craig, supported by her sisters Daisy and Ena, and brother George. The museum is still in these premises and the team is forever grateful for this gift which changed everything.

Renovations to the building (which had suffered from damp), creating an internal staircase, shelving one of the rooms upstairs for the library and archives, and flooring the attic for storage, took time – years and years, in fact, of volunteer commitment, fundraising and hard work.

The list of names of those involved runs into the hundreds but special tribute must be paid to those who worked so hard, particularly renovating and converting the Columba Buildings site from its previous uses – a store, a butcher’s shop and a bakery (the oven still exists).

Alastair and Hilary Garvie, Elizabeth Normand, Ted Brockie, Val Thomas, Bruce Whittaker, Anne MacGregor and Norman MacDonald (contractor) were all involved in those early challenges.

Since then interesting displays have been mounted and the museum has welcomed visitors from all over the world – just before the pandemic it had up to 27,000 through the door each year between April and October.

All the time the collection of artefacts, documents and photographs continues to grow, and during the pandemic visitors were welcomed virtually, with the catalogue online and answering queries. The building opened again in 2021 and will be open from April this year.

Thanks are due to the army of volunteers who make it all possible, and it is hoped new volunteers will join them and make the next 50 years as successful.

To celebrate the anniversary, student Beata Szeleczki created a beautiful and imaginative window display telling its story. Beata was funded by CHARTS Heritage Horizons project, enabled by Scottish Power. The window display will be there until October.

Denis Broad, chairman of Mull and Iona Folklore Museum, said: ‘We have everything from geology and prehistory, through the clans, to the wars. They are putting up a display on the car rally – that has been a big thing since 1968. History is happening all the time. We will have something to say about Covid when that becomes history – as we hope it does.’