arklow maritime museum

This "unvarnished" collection uses no modern display techniques whatsoever, which helps enhance its authenticity. Arklow has a very fine fishing and maritime tradition. Early this century it had eighty in the present day by Arklow Shipping, which has the largest Irish-flagged fleet. There's a model of Sir Francis Chichester's Gypsy Moth III, built in the Arklow yard of John Tyrrell & Sons. The museum also recalls the great hardships of World War II (the "emergency" in Ireland). A mine from this period stands at the entrance to the museum, Arklow was the first place in Ireland to have a lifeboat station, in 1826, and that proud tradition is also recalled. This delightful miscellany of material includes everything from old navigational instruments to a uniform worn by a merchant navy officer and a shoe worn by a woman passenger on the ill-fated Lusitania.