Welcome to BADMINTON MUSEUM OF IRELAND.

The purpose of the Badminton Museum of Ireland is to preserve the great heritage of Irish Badminton and to make the general badminton public aware of it.

Although 1999 might appear fairly recent for a Museum, the gallery item in this issue displays the Irish Team that played England as part of the Centenary celebrations of the Badminton Union of Ireland. It underlines the long history of the organised game in Ireland and we should reflect on the extent of the heritage of the Irish Badminton scene.

In looking through the original Minute Book of the Leinster Branch I was struck by the amount of information included in press cuttings from 1936 and the obvious interest of the Branch Secretary of the time, F.A.Jones, in maintaining records of current events. We are now the beneficiaries of his foresight. Results of six competitions are listed. The Provincial Towns Cup is the only one that is still not being played. It has probably been superseded by the Inter-county competitions. It is interesting to note that Miss E.Carty won both her games for the Midland Branch (now Leinster Branch) in the Senior Interprovincial Match and also won both her matches while playing for Carlow in the Provincial Towns Cup final. Unfortunately for her, she was on the losing side on both occasions. These cuttings are displayed in the Historical Section by kind permission of Leinster Branch

The main purpose of the Museum is to ensure the safe keeping of historical detail of Badminton in Ireland. The question arises should an effort be made to develop a history of players and competitions and venues from the information received. No Museum is likely to have the space to show all items donated so unfortunately interesting items can remain unconnected to the interesting aspect of player and competition history. The Museum will be delighted to receive donation or loan of memorabilia and contact can be made through the website.

Dick O’Rafferty
Curator