With great joy, the European Museum Forum shares the decision by the Council of Europe on the winner of the Council of Europe Museum Prize 2022 which they have awarded to Nano Nagle Place (Cork, Ireland). The museum was selected by the Culture Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) at a meeting today.
Nano Nagle Place not only commemorates the educational and religious work of Nano Nagle, who founded schools for the Catholic poor in Cork at a time when it was illegal, but equally it continues the same mission to provide support and care for people in need. The charity which runs the museum continues the order’s educational and spiritual work through the Cork Migrant Centre, providing services for asylum seekers and refugees, and the Lantern, which runs community education and development services.
According to committee representative for the Museum Prize, Roberto Rampi (Italy, SOC), “despite being rooted in the specific religious tradition of Roman Catholicism, with nuns still living on the site, there is a strong sense of caring based on need, not on doctrine. Nano Nagle Place has a very strong and coherent mission which is in line with the Council of Europe’s human rights values and principles”.
Nano Nagle Place CEO Shane Clarke said “It’s a huge honour to win the Council of Europe Museum Prize. Nano Nagle was a true European. Having spent her youth in France, she also looked to Europe for help and inspiration when she invited the Ursuline Sisters to come to Cork. Nano Nagle addressed the needs she saw before her in the 18th Century, and at Nano Nagle Place we continue in that spirit, addressing the societal issues before us today. We are both moved and proud that the Culture Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe have recognised our twin missions of celebrating the daring endeavours of Nano Nagle in the past, while continuing her work to address new societal issues in the present”.
Being an important part of the European Museum of the Year Award scheme, the Council of Europe Museum Prize is awarded to a museum which puts particular emphasis on European perspectives and the interplay between local and European identities, on a commitment to and presentation of key values of democracy, human rights, inter-cultural dialogue, of bridging cultures and overcoming social and political borders.
The prize forms part of the European Museum of the Year Awards. Recent winners of the prize include the Gulag History Museum in Moscow (2021), the National Museum of Secret Surveillance “House of Leaves” in Tirana (2020) and the Museum of Communication in Bern (2019).
More details are available here: https://www.europeanforum.museum/en/emya-twentytwo/nano-nagle-place/ and https://pace.coe.int/en/pages/museumprize
