SNIPPET: Limerick's new Hunt Museum was featured in a photo-article by Dr. Peter HARBISON in the Sept/Oct 1998 issue of Dublin's "Ireland of the Welcomes" magazine. The Museum had, at last, found a permanent home, and the new Director, Ciaran MacGONIGAL, formerly of the RHA Gallery in Dublin, was a man with art long-flowing in his veins - his father was the painter Maurice MacGONIGAL. Exhibits include a fine Bronze Age cauldron from Ballyscullion Co. Antrim of c. 700 B.C, and a rare Cashel bell, of c. 900, decorated with a ringed Celtic cross. Glass-topped drawers beneath display cases allow young and old to inspect small treasures in detail that are part of the museum's outstanding collection. Works of art by well-known artists are displayed, but it is not just the big names which give the HUNT Collection its legendary status -- it is the superb quality of the work of many anonymous craftsmen. Each item in this eclectic collection was brought together by two very remarkable connoisseurs, the late John and Gertrude HUNT. Neither he (Irish), nor she (German), had a family fortune to start with, and John was said to be 'stony broke' when the couple first met. They had an antique shop in Dublin, and later opened another in London, and what might seem to be a fatal trait in dealers -- keeping rather than selling objects they had bought -- turned out to their, and Ireland's advantage, as they gathered together objects, of great value but which were little appreciated in the 1930s when they began collecting, and they were able to pick up unrecognised masterpieces failing to reach their reserve price at auction. Gertrude was the business brain of the partnership, with an innate flair for perceiving quality. Her husband John amassed a tremendous knowledge, particularly of the Middle Ages, almost entirely through his own acute observation and memory and became a mediev! al art adviser to SOTHEBYs as well as the great Glasgow collector, Sir William BURRELL, and was selected to catalogue the William Randolph HEARST collection in CA. The Collection includes a fine Bronze Age cauldron from Ballyscullion Co. Antrim c. 700 BC, paintings and drawings by PICASSO, CHARDIN, Henry MOORE, Roderic O'CONOR, Jack B. YEATS, an over-life-size wooden Romanesque figure of Christ, a rare bronze 9th century Antrim Cross, an unusual Greek statue made of wood, a Mexican post-Olmec statue and prehistoric bronze vessels. The HUNTs were very religious, and this is expressed in the many items of medieval religious art from all over Europe which make up their main collection. Objects include an English Beverly crozier carved out of walrus ivory, jewellery, sculpture, glass, table silver, porcelain and valuable coins There is a small bronze horse, one of four possibly cast from mouldings from an original by Leonardo da VINCI. One piece originally in the HUNTs collection you will not be able to find is a small Irish penal crucifix about two centuries old - the one John HUNT requested should be buried with him. He died in ! 1976, and his wife in 1995. Both the HUNTs were passionately proud of Ireland, and wanted to ensure that their lovingly-assembled group of objects should be left to the Irish people, which it was - through a Trust they set up at Craggaunowen Castle, Co. Clare, where they reconstructed an old Irish crannog and ring-fort and hoped to build a museum to house the collection. Dr. Edward WALSH, -retired President of what is now the University of Limerick, offered rooms in his college for display of part of the collection until a permanent home could be found. Time went by. More recently, good friends of the HUNTs, and of Limerick, rallied around, and with the help of Dr. Tony RYAN, founder of Ryanair, the former Custom House in Limerick city was secured. Designed by the Franco-Italian architect Davis DUCART and completed in 1769, it was the city's finest 18th century building, and an inspired choice for display of the HUNT collection, which was opened there by the then Taoiseach, John BRUTON, in February! , 1997. John HUNT Jr. and his sister, Trudy, helped to fulfil their parents' wish to have the collection made available to the people of Ireland. Their selflessness in not wanting to keep any of these beautiful and valuable objects for themselves, inspired the City Fathers to bestow on them the Freedom of the City of Limerick in the months after the Museum opened, an honour they richly deserved.