GPO Witness History Visitor Centre has won The Micheletti Award at the European Museum Academy Awards at a ceremony in Macedonia. The award is the European prize for innovative museums in the world of contemporary history, industry and science.
The centre was pitted against the like of the German Football Museum in Dortmund, Opera del Duomo, Florence; and the European Solidarity Centre in Gdansk.
HRH Princess Sibella of Luxembourg presented the Micheletti Award to Mark Leslie of Martello Media, who accepted the award on behalf of GPO Witness History. He paid tribute to his creative team on the project and Shannon Heritage’s operational staff at the GPO.
HRH Princess Sibella of Luxembourg, who presented the EMA 20117 Micheletti Award to Mark Leslie (Martello Media) for ‘GPO Witness History’, with Mark, Rene Capovin of the Micheletti Foundation and Ann Nicholls of the European Museum Academy in Skopje.
GPO Witness History’s General Manager, Aline FitzGerald, said: “This is such incredible recognition not only for the team at GPO Witness History, also for the many contributors to the visitor centre from its inception to today.”
The centre uses witness accounts and artefacts to bring the events of the Easter 1916 rising to life for Irish and international audiences. The award judges said the centre deals “in an even-handed way with a very emotive subject that would have been impossible even a decade ago. It is an extraordinary achievement, an historical challenge that has been transformed into a reconciliation centre which also poses questions for the future.”
The centre has also been shortlisted for the AHI Discover Heritage Awards – for excellence in cultural and natural heritage interpretation in Britain and Ireland 2017 – in the Visitor/Interpretation Centres category.
