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.

Welcome to the new issue.

Shortly the Badminton Museum of Ireland will make its home in space very kindly provided by the Leinster Branch in the Baldoyle Centre. This will be a wonderful occasion for both bodies. Apart from the magnificent Museum run by the GAA at Croke Park, it is believed that no other Irish Sports body has provided a Museum to protect the heritage of its sport and make its players aware of that heritage. The Leinster Branch has provided the game in Ireland with two fine halls, practically entirely by voluntary effort, something unique in Britain and Ireland, and has now taken another step forward by co-operating with BMI in making an Irish Badminton Museum a feasible project.

The new Museum will have a four-part dimension. First, there will be an administrative area, relatively small. Then, the most important part, occupying most space - the Archive. The uninitiated think of a Museum as largely a matter of display but in fact the most important part by far is the Archive. Here will be stored various records in the way of badminton books, newspaper cuttings, photographs, recordings, sundry reports, going back 120 years. Much of this has been catalogued by the Curator over the years. Digitising will be prosecuted to save space and as a fall-back, stored off-site, in case of any disaster. Finally, as a Museum is a living entity, material likely to be of historical value in 25 years time, will be stored unobtrusively for that time.

Preserving the heritage of Irish Badminton should not be restricted to any particular area of the game. We are keen to receive items of interest relating to Clubs and Counties in addition to National and Branch records. Please contact the curator through the website in relation to memorabilia.

In the Historical section of this issue is displayed the front and back cover of Rules of Badminton Union of Ireland and the Laws of Badminton from 1939. The back cover is very interesting where RSL (Reinforced Shuttlecocks Limited) apologise for being forced into exporting at the expense of their business.

The Gallery section displays a British Isles Team that toured Canada in 1925. Included are Frank Devlin, arguably, Ireland’s greatest ever player and George Thomas who presented the Thomas Cup, the Men’s International Team Competition.

Dick O’Rafferty
Curator