Donnelly's Arm displayed in Heritage Centre

Visitors to Kilcullen Heritage Centre over the last two afternoons found an unexpected extra attraction, writes Brian Byrne. The main event was the showing of the new documentary on the 1903 Gordon Bennett race, How Ireland saved Motorsport ... but also in the Centre was the famous Dan Donnelly's Arm.

The rare display of the much-travelled relic of the 18th-century boxer was courtesy of Josephine Byrne. It was a key exhibit in The Hideout museum pub from the early 1950s through to 1996 when the late Des Byrne retired from the business. In 2006 it was the centrepiece of a 'Fighting Irishmen' boxers exhibition put on in New York, which subsequently travelled to Boston, the Ulster Folk Museum, Croke Park, and the University of Limerick. It was last displayed in Kilcullen during National Heritage Week 2019.

Among today's visitors were a group of local children, seen above listening to Eilish Keogh of Kilcullen Heritage Group telling the fascinating history of Dan Donnelly. 

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