NIMC Round 1 Grants Awarded
October 20, 2025Play area at Mid Antrim Museum
Local Museums Small Capital Grant Programme
The NI Museums Council’s Local Museums Small Capital Grant Programme is funded through the Department for Communities and administered by NIMC. Museums could apply for £500 – £10,000 per funding application for any equipment and/or minor works to help adapt their venue or working practice.
NIMC has been able to award a total of £80,000 to the following museums:
- North Down Museum – ‘Beyond the Box: Optimising outreach through handling collections’.
To expand their work increasing access to collections through the delivery of talks and tours to elderly and SEN groups within the community, this project will supplement the handling collections in order to increase offers and ensure this free community service is sustainable. - Ballymoney Museum – ‘Museum Minis refurbishment’.
Refurbishment of the much-loved Museum Minis area—a dedicated space for young children and families to explore, play, and engage with local heritage. The new space will be a more inclusive, stimulating, and adaptable environment with an expansion offer of SEN resources. - Coleraine Museum – ‘Sensing Coleraine’s past: access in the community’.
This project will deliver a new sensory wall display, exploring the history of Coleraine town across the centuries, through museum objects. This engaging and colourful visual display and furniture will allow the museum to better share Coleraine’s history and collection with a wider audience, specifically families, young children and those with special physical or learning needs. - F.E. McWilliam Gallery & Studio – ‘Fit out of Changing Places Facility at the F.E. McWilliam Gallery’.
This funding will allow for a new, purpose-built Changing Places Toilet (CPT) which will cater to visitors with complex physical needs and will ensure that they and their families/carers are not excluded from enjoying our collections, exhibitions, events, café and shop. - Downpatrick and County Down Railway – ‘Enhancing Accessibility at the Railway’.
Improvements to support public access including seating, accessible toilet and hearing loop systems.
- F.E. McWilliam Gallery & Studio -‘Fit out of new education and community rooms at the F.E. McWilliam Gallery ‘.
This funding will help create a new, purpose-built education and community suite fit out with suitable, durable furniture that can be used for school visits, workshops, talks and seminars. - Mid-Antrim Museum -‘Holding Back the Tide: Climate Adaption’.
Introduction of flood protection measures to ensure the continued safety of the collection in the context of the detrimental effects of climate change. - Whitehead Railway Museum – ‘All Aboard: Improving Inclusive Access at Whitehead Railway Museum’.
Delivering a range of practical, visitor-focused improvements including a sensory room, hearing loops, seating and improvements to signage, pathways and parking. - Mount Stewart House and Gardens – ‘Equipment for Education, Learning and Collections’.
This project will enhance the learning offer through the acquisition of handling objects, loan boxes, resources and the uptake of the NI Challenge Badge scheme. - Newry and Mourne Museum – ‘Toys and Clothing Loan Boxes’.
Development of two new handling collections—a total of six boxes—for the Museum’s outreach activities and workshops. the boxes will be linked to the “World Around Us” element of the primary school curriculum and to the topic of sustainability.
Museum Collections Capital Grant Programme (Round 1)
The NI Museums Council’s Museum Collections Capital Grant Programme is funded through the Department for Communities and administered by NIMC. Museums could apply for £500 – £5,000 per funding application for any equipment and/or minor works to help care for collections or make them more accessible to the public.
NIMC have been able to award over £14,000 to the following museums:
- Fermanagh County Museum – ‘Enhancing Management of our Local History Archives’
In response to a collection expansion and review, this project will meet storage solutions and provide photographic equipment to assist in archive digitisation. The project will rationalise and enhance collections care whilst promoting opportunities for greater understanding and enjoyment of the museum’s archive collections and local heritage. - Linen Hall – ‘Buzz Logan Photographic Archive’
Buzz Logan was a staff photographer for the Irish Independent. His photographs of early People’s Democracy civil rights marches from 1968 are iconic. The project will audit, organise, conserve through archival packaging and storage, and make accessible via the creation of digital copies the Buzz Logan Photographic Archive. - Armagh Robinson Library and No 5 Vicars’ Hill – ‘Protection of our Loose Pamphlet Collection’.
The Library holds over 2,100 loose pamphlets dating from the 1680s to the 1990s. This project will allow these pamphlets to be conserved and protected from chemical and mechanical damage and make them accessible to researchers.
- Down County Museum -‘Capturing the Collection: Digitisation & Storage of Down County Museum’s historic photographs’
Down County Museum cares for an important collection of approx. 50,000 photographs including glass plate negatives, film negatives and prints. this project will improve the security, protection and preventive conservation standards of the photographic collection whilst also enabling public access through digitisation. - Whitehead Railway Museum – ‘Safeguarding the Past: Enhancing Care and Public Access to Historic Railway Collections’.
This project will provide vital equipment and materials needed to improve the conservation care of historic locomotives, carriages, and artefacts — many of which are rare or unique examples of our industrial past. The museum will implement better storage, handling, and display solutions, helping to stabilise fragile items and extend their lifespan and will be able to develop new handling collections and temporary displays tailored for schools and community groups, supporting curriculum-linked learning and hands-on exploration.
Other Grant programmes
The NIMC Collecting for the Future Grant Programme is funded by the Esmé Mitchell Trust and enables accredited museums to apply for up to £1,000 towards the purchase of cultural and artistic objects in partnership with museum users and communities. This is a rolling programme running until 2028, with a total pot of £5,000 per year