'We just had to start again' after bombs destroyed museum collection

When a fire caused by two bombs during the height of the Troubles destroyed nearly all of the Ulster Museum's fashion collection art curator Elizabeth McCrum and her team had to start again from scratch.

The collection was being stored in Malone House in Belfast when it was bombed on 11 November 1976.

Only one item was left - an 18th Century embroidered quilt, because it happened to be on display at the museum.

Fifty years on, a new exhibition celebrates how the costume and textile collection has been rebuilt - and that quilt which survived and is now part of the reborn collection.

Rewinding back to the 70s, in 1978, two years after the fire, McCrum told the BBC's Scene Around Six programme that she thought "we've done really well," in early efforts at rebuilding the collection.

"We keep forgetting that the last costume collection took 70 years to accumulate, so when we feel impatient, we do have to remember we've just been at it for two years," she said in the 1978 archive footage.

Fifty years on and McCrum is "proud" of what she and the other curators have achieved.

"Seeing the exhibition today, it's quite moving and exciting.

She remembers how "bizarre" it felt after the fire having to think of what to do next.

"Probably one of the best pieces survived, but everything else was gone, so we just had to start again.

"We lost a late Elizabethan jacket which we'll never get again."

Elizabeth had been in Malone House on the day of the fire but had to call into the museum so heard the news later.

She said: "In a way everything being destroyed made it easier. If everything had been waterlogged by fire hoses it would probably have been harder, but it was all gone, which was terrible."

Five decades on from the fire and the gauntlet has been passed onto the current curator of fashion and textiles at National Museums NI.

"What I find inspiring is the work that went into rebuilding since the fire and the ability to take a tragedy and turn it into something different and something beautiful," said Charlotte McReynolds.

"I fell sad for the people who helped build the collection," she said.

"Members of the public who perhaps entrusted pieces, who hoped that they'd be kept for generations," she added.

The collection has important period pieces, such as silk gowns from the 18th Century, as well as modern items, including pieces by Northern Ireland designer Jonathan Anderson.

McReynolds explained why it's important to collect both old and new pieces.

"It contains so many examples of fashion history, but also that it continues to breathe new life into the collection. It means that the collection always feels vital."

Malone House was leased to the The National Trust in the 1970s and historical documents were also damaged in the blaze.

An unnamed spokesperson from the charity, who was interviewed when firefighters were working trying to put the fire out, called the incident "crazy".

"Why do we throw away our own heritage?" he asked.

"It's a senseless act which is a loss to the people of Ulster and the people of this island," he added.

Elise Taylor joined the museum a few years after the fire.

She said she's just glad that nobody was in the building.

She said the costume collection was housed at a high floor in the Malone House and "fell into the flames".

"In a sense when you can't save anything you can't really grieve over one thing specifically, you can just grieve over the whole thing just disappearing and it was a great loss," she said.

Taylor feels like today's collection is her and the two other curators' "baby", because "so much of it was our work".

"To rebuild that has taken an awful lot of work from Elizabeth, myself and now Charlotte."

She remembers travelling to places like Monte Carlo to acquire pieces.

"We can remember the auctions that we went to and how thrilled we were to find something."

The exhibition, which is ticketed, is on display until September.