A visitor from Melbourne, Mark Canterbury, called into the museum on Friday morning, looking for information on his grandfather Pat Canterbury who left Arklow for Australia many decades ago. One of Mark’s abiding memories of his grandfather was the pipe he smoked, complete with metal cap. The pipe vanished from the Melbourn home years ago. We showed Mark a similar one, typical of the kind used by Arklow fishermen, in one of the cases. It turned out to be Pat Canterbury’s pipe!!
Apparently, Pat’s daughter Catherine visited the museum in 2001 and donated her father’s pipe. Mark knew nothing of his aunt Catherine’s donation and had assumed that it had simply been lost over the years. When we took the pipe from the case for Mark to handle, he could still get the smell of the smoke he remembered so well from his childhood.
Just one of the magic moments that makes the work of Arklow Maritime Museum so important. Call in and see us at the Bridgewater Centre open seven days a week, 10-5.