Exhibitions
Coastal Defence during the First World War – Please come along to Carrickfergus Museum Exhibition 20th October – 5th January 2019
The exhibition is funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and is the end result of a community heritage project, led by Carrickfergus Museum and Living Legacies 1914-1918, to investigate the site known locally as Bentra Airfield.
Bentra airship station was the first military aviation facility in Ireland, and although it may only have been active for a few short years towards the end of the war, the site played a significant role in the defeat of the deadly German U-boats.
But Bentra Airfield did not exist in isolation, it was part of a wider landscape of coastal defence during the First World War, much of which still exists along the shores of Belfast Lough. Kilroot Fort, just two miles from here, and Grey Point Fort on the opposite side of the Lough, and not forgetting Carrickfergus Castle, were all part of this landscape. These sites are all considered in the exhibition and the forts were investigated as part of the Community Heritage Project.
We are very grateful to the team from Living Legacies and their colleagues, all from Queens University Belfast, who expertly delivered a number of workshops designed to take participants from desktop survey to field survey – and you’ll have to attend the exhibition to see what they found out!
In addition to the exhibition, a number of items relating to the SS Chirripo are on display, alongside FE2b and BE2c propellers on load from the Ulster Aviation Society, and flight gear on loan from the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm Museum.’
For more information please click here 