The Leitir Mealláin and Garumna Heritage Centre offers an extraordinary insight into how our ancestors lived. Its vast collection includes antique implements for fishing, farming, and household work as well as maritime and movie memorabilia, toys, money and guns. Old photos from the area show how people lived locally, while there’s also an enormous collection of historic documents and books. This eclectic centre is based on the collection of historian John Bhaba Jeaic Ó Confhaola. He tells JUDY MURPHY why it matters.

“It’s like being on drugs,” jokes John Bhaba Jeaic Ó Confhaola, about his passion for collecting historical and everyday items that offer a window into the past.

It’s hard to disagree as he gestures around the unique Leitir Mealláin and Garumna Heritage Centre, 36 miles from Galway City.

After the final section of the journey along the winding causeways and bridges that lead to Conamara’s Ceantar na nOileán, you’ll find this heritage centre in a modern building, developed by Údarás na Gaeltachta.

Downstairs, there are luxury seaweed baths with every creature comfort, while upstairs is a treasure trove, with hundreds of items offering an insight into life as it was lived in this area and in other parts of rural Ireland, going back centuries.

The museum which opened in 2009 is presided over by this man, whose knowledge of the area is unsurpassed, although he says he is “still learning every day.

John Bhaba Jeaic’s first ‘university’ was “down by the shoreline, cutting seaweed and learning stuff” from older generations. And while he didn’t go on to study history or archaeology at any third level institute, he has successfully dedicated his life to learning about his local place.

His first foray into collecting was via newspapers, which he’d buy and keep when they contained items of local interest – or articles on Gaelic football, local and county. He’s a big fan and has been since childhood, with great memories of the legendary three-in-a-row All-Ireland winning side from 1963-66

His passion grew from there and he’s a regular visit to car-boot sales and auctions near and far.

Everywhere you look in this centre, there’s something to intrigue: traditional fishing equipment, farming tools, cooking utensils, magazines and books, photos, children’s toys, boxes for soaps and washing powder from other eras.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App

Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.

Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.

Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite  HERE.

Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.