THE WORK of Limerick's Hunt Museum was celebrated by President Mary McAleese when she met the Friends of the Hunt Museum at Áras an Uachtaráin yesterday.
Some 50 supporters of the museum were invited to meet the President, following her visit to the museum in January. The group presented her with a book about Limerick silver, the focus of a recent museum exhibition.
Friends of the Hunt Museum chairwoman Daphne Henderson also thanked the President for her "wonderful" words of support when she visited the museum.
The President had described allegations made by the Simon Wiesenthal Centre about the Hunt family as baseless and unfounded.
The allegations had questioned the provenance of antiquities in the museum and claimed the late John and Gertrude Hunt had done business with "notorious dealers in art looted by the Nazis".
Mrs McAleese said the allegations had hurt many people. Last October, an independent report by Lynn Nicholas, a world authority on Nazi-looted art, found no proof of the allegations. Yesterday Ms Henderson said that controversy was all in the past. She said the President was a good friend to the museum: "She was wonderful. Not only is she such a bright, intelligent, charming and very beautiful woman. She just oozes charm and that lovely warm handshake of hers."
With 500 friends, the body is one of the biggest museum support groups in the country.
