Kerry Writers’ Museum has just received €47,750 from the Heritage Council to continue recovering and archiving films shot in rural north Kerry. It brings total investment by the Heritage Council in this project – developed by Ciarán Walsh | curator.ie – to almost €100,000 over two years. The screening of Leo Finucane’s film Father And Son at Clounmacon Community Centre is a continuation of the community cinema programme and the first act of the second phase of this groundbreaking project.
The 2025 grant allows Kerry Writers’ Museum to complete its acquisition of two very important collections. The first is Jimmy Deenihan’s remarkable library of North Kerry Literary Trust recordings of Kerry writers and their associates. The second is the Tony Fitmaurice collection of photographs, which his niece Kathy Reynoldshas given back to the people of Listowel and Ballybunion.
Heritage Council funding will also enable the museum to develop a viewing library with trained staff to provide free, public access to these and other collections as they are archived and digitized. That places Kerry Writers’ Museum at the forefront of a strategic drive to manage public engagement with archives like this at a local level. The partnership with Leo Finucane and Clounmacon Community Centre is an important part of that project.