2018–2019 National Museums Northern Ireland Annual Report and Accounts For the year ended 31 March 2019 Laid before the Northern Ireland Assembly under Article 10 (2) (c) and 11 of the Museums and Galleries (Northern Ireland) Order 1998 by the Department for Communities on 15 October 2019 NATIONAL MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES OF NORTHERN IRELAND ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2019 All enquiries related to this publication should be sent to us at National Museums Northern Ireland, 153 Bangor Road, Cultra, Holywood, Co.Down, BT18 0EU or email:
[email protected]. NATIONAL MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES OF NORTHERN IRELAND ANNUAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2019 Chief Executive’s Welcome Museums have a certain affinity for looking back on the past and studying it to tell stories of change, evolution and progress. In the future if we were to look back on financial year 2018-19 at National Museums NI, I’m confident it will be underlined as a year of great significance. This was the year when we opened The Troubles & Beyond gallery in the Ulster Museum laying down a marker of our intent to be braver and more active in facilitating understanding of our complex past. It was also a year of headliner exhibitions and broken records with the trio of loans – Dippy On Tour, Tim Peake’s Space Capsule and Leonardo 500 – contributing to our highest ever visitor numbers of 905,102 visitors, which will serve us well into the future in terms of new visitors returning. More critical than the record-breaking visitor performance, however, is the organisation’s progress along its journey of transformational change.