National Museums NI (formerly ''National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland'') is a museum service in

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

, consisting of the

Ulster American Folk Park The Ulster American Folk Park is an open-air museum just outside Omagh, in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. With more than 30 exhibit buildings to explore, the museum tells the story of three centuries of Irish emigration. Using costumed guide ...

, the Ulster Folk Museum, Ulster Transport Museum and the

Ulster Museum The Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres (90,000 sq. ft.) of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasures ...

. It is headquartered at

Cultra Cultra ( - ) is an affluent residential neighbourhood near Holywood, County Down, Northern Ireland. It is part of Greater Belfast. It is in the Ards and North Down Borough Council area. Cultra is home to the Royal North of Ireland Yacht ...

and is sponsored by the Department for Communities to promote history, art, science and the culture of the people of Northern Ireland. As of 2020, NMNI has 274 employees.

RMS ''Titanic''

In late August 2018, several groups were vying for the right to purchase the 5,500 relics that were an asset of the bankrupt

Premier Exhibitions Premier Exhibitions Inc () is an Atlanta, Georgia-based company that organizes traveling exhibitions. , the company owned 5,500 ''Titanic'' relics with approximately 1,300 on display in various countries. Its two most prominent exhibits are a ...

. Eventually, the

National Maritime Museum The National Maritime Museum (NMM) is a maritime museum in Greenwich, London. It is part of Royal Museums Greenwich, a network of museums in the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site. Like other publicly funded national museums in the Unit ...

, ''Titanic'' Belfast and ''Titanic'' Foundation Limited, as well as the National Museums Northern Ireland, joined together as a consortium that was raising money to purchase the 5,500 artefacts. The group intended to keep all of the items together as a single exhibit. Oceanographer

Robert Ballard Robert Duane Ballard (born June 30, 1942) is an American retired Navy officer and a professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island who is noted for his work in underwater archaeology (maritime archaeology and archaeology of ...

said he favoured this bid since it would ensure that the memorabilia would be permanently displayed in Belfast (where the ''Titanic'' was built) and in

Greenwich Greenwich ( , , ) is an List of areas of London, area in south-east London, England, within the Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county of Greater London, east-south-east of Charing Cross. Greenwich is notable for its maritime hi ...

. The museums were critical of the bid process set by the Bankruptcy court in Jacksonville, Florida. The minimum bid for the 11 October 2018 auction was set at US$21.5 million (£16.5m) and the consortium did not have enough funding to meet that amount.Bankrupt Premier Exhibitions Inc. owns 5,500 items from the ill-fated ocean liner The Basch Report 3 October 2018
/ref>

References

External links

* {{authority control Non-departmental public bodies of the Northern Ireland Executive Museums in Northern Ireland Northern Ireland