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.

The gallery item this month displays an old photograph of the winners of the Wexford County Championships in1963. There is a certain amount of personal interest here as the Curator’s father is the Chairman shown and it was his interest in the game that encouraged me to play. Of more general interest is that Mary Sinnott is now better known to the Badminton population as Mary Dinan. Mary has always maintained a strong interest in Wexford Badminton and for many seasons coached the County teams in preparation for Intercounty Competition. Marie Kinsella was a very fine player and played on the Southern Branch teams for a number of years when Wexford was part of that Branch.

The historical item is an interesting little article that appeared in October 1954 shortly after the opening of the Centre at Whitehall Road. This year marks the 60 anniversary of the opening of the Hall and this article conveys some interesting points. The condensation was solved some time later when material was bought from a film company that had used the Hall and was placed in the roof of the Hall. The debt of £4000 was probably fairly small at that time but it did show the ability of the Executive to have a very functional hall at appropriate cost. The likelihood of an international player nowadays injuring himself when helping to get the tiered seating in place before an event would probably be zero. Those were the days!

Whilst most players and officials are now looking forward to the new season I would encourage some backward looking at the great heritage that is Irish Badminton. Undoubtedly there is much of historic interest around the country and we would encourage the passing on information of such items to me through the website.

Dick O’Rafferty
Curator