Ireland’s Original Influencers? Words on the Wave: Ireland and St Gallen in Early Medieval Europe: an exhibition at the National Museum of Ireland
Pictured: Maeve Sikora, Keeper of Antiquities, National Museum of Ireland
holding the Tully Lough cross. Photo: Julien Behal
Lecture by
Maeve Sikora
Thursday 25 September 2025
at
8.30pm
in
Clonakilty GAA Club, Ahamilla
Entry: €5 on the door
The next lecture hosted by Dúchas Clonakilty Heritage takes place on Thursday September 25 at 8.30 pm in Clonakilty GAA Club and will be presented by West Cork native Maeve Sikora who is the Keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland. Her lecture is entitled ‘Ireland’s Original Influencers? Words on the Wave: Ireland and St Gallen in Early Medieval Europe: an exhibition at the National Museum of Ireland’. It will take the audience through a major exhibition currently on display at the National Museum of Ireland which centres on a loan of Irish and Irish-related Manuscripts which are held in the Abbey Library at St Gallen in Switzerland. This is the first time in 1000 years that some of the manuscripts returned to Ireland and it presents a once-in-a-lifetime exhibition to experience the magic of early medieval Irish through metalwork, manuscripts and stone. More than 100 objects from the National Museum of Ireland’s collection have been brought together to complement the manuscripts on display. The talk will present the major themes of the exhibition and provide the audience with the background to the exhibition, and hopefully encourage all to visit this free exhibition which is open until the end of October.
Maeve Sikora, who is a native of Reenascreena, is a graduate of University College Cork, where she studied Archaeology and History.
She joined the Museum in 2001 as a curatorial researcher and was appointed Keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland in July 2017, taking responsibility for the Museum’s archaeological collections. Maeve’s interests are in the early medieval and Viking collections and in the archaeology of death and burial in Ireland.
Maeve has published on burial archaeology, on Viking-age material and on the early medieval collections. Most recently, she managed the team that curated an exhibition featuring early Medieval Manuscripts of Irish origin, from the Abbey Library of St. Gallen in Switzerland.
