Museum Page

Ye Olde Hurdy Gurdy Museum of Vintage Radio is
located in the Martello Tower overlooking the
harbour in Howth, Co. Dublin. The museum opened, in
in the recently restored tower, in 2003. Pat Herbert is
the curator, and his collection of old radios, music
boxes, gramophones and other related items are on
exhibit. Pat has been collecting for forty years and
takes great pride and pleasure in showing visitors
around this gem of a museum.

Opening hours are 11 until 4 daily, however the museum is only open at weekends from November until
the end of April. The DART suburban railway, and number 31 or 31B busses from Dublin City serve
Howth. The entrance to the museum is up a steep pathway opposite the Abbey Tavern in Abbey Street.

The Martello watchtower was completed in 1805 when a Napoleonic invasion of Ireland seemed imminent.
The first working submarine telegraph from Great Britain came ashore on the beach just below the tower
in 1854. The tower then became a cable station.

In 1903, the famous American wireless pioneer Lee de Forrest used the tower to demonstrate his wireless
telegraphy system to engineers of the British Post Office. Two years later the Marconi Company
conducted ship to shore wireless experiments with the HMS Monarch as she sailed to various locations in
the Irish Sea.

An amateur radio station with the callsign EI0MAR operates from the tower on most Sundays using
mainly wireless telegraphy as befits such a historic location.