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Fund a Cobble, create a Museum in the Garden crowdfunding campaign

Fund a Cobble Fund: It Campaign by The Hunt Museum hopes to pay homage to frontline staff during the Covid-19 crisis.

Fund a Cobble, create a Museum in the Garden crowdfunding campaign

The Hunt Museum is going to take down the railings surrounding the museum to create a Museum in the Garden in the heart of Limerick city but needs help to fund it. Using scanning and 3D printing technologies, artefacts within the Hunt Museum, “hidden” in collection cases will be replicated in large form and installed in their newly landscaped garden, for all ages to play with and enjoy. 


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A nationwide competition has given them, a new exciting design and community groups will work with professionals in its delivery. As well as being a new and vibrant space in the heart of Limerick, Museum in the Garden will honour our great debt to the heroes and heroines on the frontline of Covid19 and will forever commemorate this era-defining time in Ireland’s history.

Claire Flynn from the Limerick Mental Health Association commented: “In this time of enforced social isolation, with many people experiencing loneliness and mental health challenges, we realise more than ever the importance of community and open spaces.  As the country re-emerges from quarantine, we want The Hunt Museum in the Garden to become a safe space for everyone.”

The positive impact of gardening on our mental health has proven to be the key driver behind donations to this campaign so far.  

Funders have welcomed the promise that this patch of green in the heart of Limerick will bring a new lease of life to people struggling with their mental health after this prolonged period of isolation. The proposed Community Garden is being greeted with a lot of enthusiasm locally and by local mental health bodies.

In the words of Monty Don, the UK’s leading garden writer and broadcaster and an advocate of gardening for better mental and physical health“When you plant something, you invest in a beautiful future amidst a stressful, chaotic and, at times, downright appalling world.

By becoming in tune with the seasons of growth and fall, preparation and harvest you make your mind and body happier and healthier. By having a direct stake and involvement with the process of plants growing, of having your hands in the soil and tending it carefully and with love, your world and everyone’s else’s world too, becomes a better place.

The new garden has been designed by Nicola Haines, winner of The Hunt Museum’s nationwide competition, she will work with volunteers from the Men’s Sheds, Limerick Mental Health Association, Team Limerick Clean-up, local schools, Le Cheile Women’s Group, Enable Ireland and the Limerick Civic Trust.

Fund a Cobble

Nicola Haines, winner of our nationwide competition and she will work with volunteers to create the garden.

The museum was also delighted to have some inspired guidance and ideas from the 6th class pupils of Scoil Ide, Corbally, who participated in the competition.  This garden will be built by the community to serve the community.

John Moran, Chair of the Hunt Museum and Liveable Limerick says: “Living in the city, I know that the new Museum in the Garden will be an amazing addition to Limerick’s urban landscape. Since I became Chair, it has been my ambition to open up the railed space around the Hunt Museum to the public and I congratulate our Director, Jill Cousins, and her team for making that happen.  

It is entirely fitting that this space becomes a space for all the community to enjoy at exactly the time when community solidarity is so essential to help our region through the COVID-19 pandemic. Our new garden will be a reminder for future generations of that Limerick solidarity as well as a beautiful space in which to remember the victims of the pandemic and the huge dedication of our Covid19 frontline workers. 

My Mum, Damien and I are delighted to be able to kick start the fundraising and  contribute the first donation towards the cost of the works and really hope that others will also find it possible to help to make this a reality for Limerick.”

Jill Cousins, Manager of The Hunt Museum said: “We are inviting family and friends of healthcare and frontline workers to donate to our FundIt campaign to have their names engraved on a cobble for the garden. 

Commemorating a loved one with an inscription on a garden box or bench or their own cobble is also possible. Our fundraising goal is €15,000, but the more we can gain the quicker the project will become a reality.  Extra funds will also allow us to be even more ambitious in what we can deliver.Fund a Cobble

We hope people will embrace our vision for this community-led Museum in the Garden and contribute to The Hunt Museum in a Garden Cobble Crowdfunding on Fundit.ie. There is a wide range of rewards for your support. From €5 to €500 everyone can give what they can afford as even a €5 helps to make this new and exciting public garden a reality!”

The target for the Cobble Crowdfunding Campaign is €15,000 and they are now 58% funded.

So far, engraved Cobbles have been the most popular of the rewards, with 56 people leaving dedications to their loved ones. Five benches with personalized inscriptions have been selected to honour families and friends.   

Three people have opted for community garden boxes with personalized messages. A dedication on a garden box is a wonderful way to remember a passionate gardener and there can be as many boxes as there are pledges. We are really looking forward to seeing all of these personalized garden boxes, cobbles and benches in our garden.

The Hunt Museum holds one of Ireland’s greatest private collections of Art and Antiquities from the Neolithic period to the 20th century. Donated by John and Gertrude Hunt to the people of Ireland, this diverse collection is housed in The Custom House, an 18th Century Palladian-style building in Limerick.

The Hunt Museum is a centre of learning and civic life that preserves and uses its world-class collections to support a greater understanding of our past and to deliver new collaborations and innovation.  Public engagement is key to our approach with a full education programme and wide community participation in all their work.

To learn more about Fund a Cobble, Create a Museum in a Garden or to show your support please visit: https://fundit.ie/project/fund-a-cobble or https://www.huntmuseum.com/home2-2/museum-in-a-garden/

For more stories on The Hunt Museum, click here.

Richard is a presenter, producer, songwriter and actor. He was named the Limerick Person of the Year (2011) and won an online award at the Metro Éireann Media and Multicultural Awards (2011) for promoting multi-culturalism online. Richard says that the ilovelimerick.com concept is very much a community driven project that aims to document life in Limerick. So, that in 20 years time people can look back and remember the events that were making the headlines.