Donnelly's Arm travels on

The 'Fighting Irishmen' exhibition which features as its centrepiece the mummified right arm of Irish pugilist Dan Donnelly, owned by the Byrne family in Kilcullen, is opening at the University of Limerick in April. Josephine Byrne is pictured above with the arm when the exhibition was in Croke Park.

The exhibition was developed and premiered at the Irish Arts Center in New York City in 2006. It will open in UL on April 11, and run through September 30. It will be one of the highlights of the Limerick European City of Sport celebrations in 2011.

The exhibit will be located at the University Arena, the main sports facility at UL. It also features an array of robes, gloves, boxing bags, prints, photographs, paintings, and film footage of Celtic prize-fighters from 1820 to the present day. They include pieces from sporting greats such as John L Sullivan, Jack Dempsey, Gene Tunney, Barry McGuigan, Freddie Gilroy, Bobby Cassidy, Gerry Cooney, Billy Graham, Billy Conn, John Duddy, Maureen Shea and many more. Ballymena-born actor Liam Neeson, Honorary Chair and long-time supporter of the Irish Arts Center, has also loaned personal items from his amateur boxing career to the exhibit including the gloves given to him by Olympic boxer Freddie Gilroy.

The exhibit first opened in 2006 at the Irish Arts Center in New York. It then went to the South Street Seaport Museum in lower Manhattan (2007), the Burns Library at Boston College (2008), the Ulster American Folk Park in Omagh, Ireland (2009) and at Croke Park at the GAA Museum in Dublin (2010). Following its exhibition in Limerick, the Fighting Irishmen plans to continue its tour in Europe, and the United States.