Waterford Treasures will bring alive the stories of the Mayor's Wine Vault this August 2022. Visitors will begin their tour in the Mayor’s Wine Vault, dating to 1440, underneath Waterford's multi-award-winning Medieval Museum. The very atmospheric building belonged to wine merchant and 11-times Mayor James Rice and bears silent witness to Waterford being the wine capital of Ireland in the Middle Ages.

The Wine Vault will tell the stories of Waterford through the 1400s importing more wine than all the other Irish towns together (that were allowed by the king!) and the people behind the stories, primarily James Rice, a fascinating Renaissance-type man, his wife and his friend Dean John Collyn.

Four interactive screens will be installed to tell the stories, plus a museum-quality showcase to display a spectacular silver-gilt model of a ship which served as a table center piece. James Rice inherited the medieval equivalent of this ship from his collaborator John Collyn, Dean of Christ Church Cathedral. Dean Collyn’s will states “I bequeath to James Rice a silver cup in the likeness of a ship”. The pair had a huge impact on Waterford in the late 1400s.

A mini festival will be held in the museum during Heritage Week 2022, 13th to 21st August, which will feature guided tours of the Wine Vault; online content and a lecture. More information and tickets will become available from the museum and online on their website before the festival dates.

Please note that the details of events listed above are provided by the relevant Local Authorities.