THE FORMER INTERNATIONAL Rugby Experience in Limerick, which closed in late-2024, is set to become a “women’s museum”.

The International Rugby Experience, housed in a six-storey building in Limerick City, was opened in May 2023.

The JP McManus-backed not for profit charitable €30m venture was constructed and delivered without State support, funding or grant aid.

In 2023, the IRE was voted the nation’s favourite building in the Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland Public Choice Award.

The aim was to attract 100,000 people to the IRE annually but only around 60,000 people visited before it closed in December 2024.

Limerick City and County Council were offered the entirely debt-free building, as well as a donation of €1.2m, in October 2023.

The donation was intended to cover projected losses for the IRE until the end of 2027, at which point the building could be used for any civic purpose by the Council.

However, negotiations between the IRE and the Council could not be progressed.

Fianna Fáil Councillor Kieran O’Hanlon last year remarked: “We have one of the biggest gifts coming to us from the greatest person Limerick ever had – JP McManus. Not only did we refuse it, but we insulted the McManus family in the process.”

In a statement this afternoon, Minister for Culture Patrick O’Donovan announced that he today updated the Government on proposals to accept the IRE building under the State Property Act 1954. 

The exhibition building will become a new regional branch of the National Museum of Ireland and “host a permanent exhibition telling the stories of women in Ireland”.

This follows the recommendation of the recently published report of the Women’s Advisory Committee on Women’s Stories. 

One of the key recommendations in the report was providing a “permanent, dedicated women’s museum, with space for exhibitions and programming to enhance women’s stories and voices”.

The site could also provide space for other exhibitions, including temporary exhibitions, under the National Museum of Ireland.  

Minister O’Donovan expressed “great appreciation and gratitude” to the McManus Family “for enabling this opportunity”.

A Department spokesperson said it provides a “unique opportunity to enhance the regional balance across the National Cultural Institutions”.

The spokesperson added that O’Donovan will now “engage fully with the McManus Family” other key stakeholders to “realise this exciting proposal and develop a permanent women’s museum in Limerick”.   

O’Donovan remarked that the plans “offer great potential to amplify the representation of women’s voices and lived experiences, in all their diversity, and with a special focus on under-represented and marginalised communities”.

He added that the move is a “significant step in expanding the reach of our national cultural institutions beyond the Capital”.

“I believe that a new museum dedicated to women’s stories would respond very meaningfully to the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Women’s Stories,” said O’Donovan.

O’Donovan meanwhile said he is “conscious that there is a detailed process to undertake to realise this proposal” and that it will be a “sensitive and complex process”.

“There are many factors to be considered, which will take time to fully work through,” said O’Donovan, who welcomed the support of Government colleagues.