The exhibition showcases the Museum’s vast collections and celebrates 40 years of collecting Lisburn’s history!  The Museum is reviving the spirit of the cabinet of curiosity and presenting an eclectic mix of objects from the collection, including rare objects, curiosities, photographs, postcards, art, and much more!

An exhibition featuring pieces from contemporary Batik artist Mary Lee Murphy.

About the artist

Mary Lee Murphy is a visual artist working through the medium of wax resist and dye. She has explored this medium for the last thirty years, and over this time has developed her own unique contemporary approach.

She draws her inspiration directly from nature and also from traditional Indonesian Batik.

The background to her work involves many hours drawing in the landscape in Connemara and more recently in her garden in Sligo, both these locations influencing her work, and the subsequent development of her textile pieces.

Mary was born in Waterford City and went to Sligo to study Fine Art, where she continues to work in her countryside studio.

Mary’s work has been widely acclaimed throughout Ireland, having exhibited in fifteen solo shows to date, and numerous group, open submission and invited exhibitions in Ireland and abroad.

This exhibition is Mary’s first in Northern Ireland and features 15 original pieces on cotton, silk and linen woven in the Museum’s weaving workshop.

The River Lagan rises in Slieve Croob and flows for over 50+ miles to its mouth in Belfast Lough.   In the course of its journey the river passes through the rolling County-Down countryside, before turning east at Magheralin.  Here the river opens onto the great plain – which divides counties Antrim and Down – and which gives the Lagan its name.  In Gaeilge, Abhainn an Lagáin translates to ‘river of the low-lying district’.

As the Lagan passed through Lisburn and towards Belfast its ‘swift tributaries’ drove machinery and industry, and barges and lighters carrying goods were a familiar sight on the water.

In this exhibition we take a journey along the Lagan and explore stories connected or linked to the River through the collection of the members of the philatelic societies of Northern Ireland.

This is their exhibition, in their own words.

A journey through the Lagan Valley in partnership with the North of Ireland Philatelic Society.