The Nore Folk museum played host on Sunday to the South East Honda Fifty
 Club from Wexford and several of their impeccably preserved vintage bikes.
 Ten members of the Club set off for the renowned museum in scenic
 Bennettsbridge after enjoying a hearty breakfast at Doyle’s pub in Bagnelstown.

 Bikes that once were commonplace on our roads but have almost disappeared from twenty first century Ireland made a heart-stopping comeback as they rolled up Cannon Hill and through the open gateway into the grounds of the museum.

 The bikes were in good company there…resting alongside 1930's iron wheeled
 tractors, 1950's phone booths, 19th century open fireplaces, cannons from the
 days of Cromwell,  agricultural implements, and assorted other relics of an
 Ireland lost in the mists of time. And these were just the items on show
 OUTSIDE the museum.
 Inside, the Honda Fifty Club visitors felt drawn to ancient petrol pumps of the kind that might once have kept the Honda's tanked up. The replica 1920's pub also fixated them, with its atmospheric insight into pre-smoking ban days and a time when even Honda Fifties had not been heard of.

 Pat Leacy on behalf of the Club said he had never in his life seen a museum
 like it. He enthused: “We were simply amazed and dumbstruck at the scope
 and nature of Seamus’s collection.

Honda 50 Club
members Bernard Bryon
 and Brendan Morgan posing in the replica 1920s “pub” at the museum.

"We all have our memories of growing up in Ireland and to see items which were an integral feature of our daily lives all those years ago was a unique experience. 

Seamus is such a mine of information and knowledge about all aspects of Irish life and antiquities.
We were transported to another world, a different Ireland, when we listened to his stories and anecdotes concerning the exhibits.

"The museum is more than a collection. It’s a receptacle of memories and
treasures…an absolutely wonderful resource. We all agreed that this was the best place
we had visited in the course of our many bike tours and we intend to return later
in the year. And Seamus welcomed us like kings. He’s a one man tourist board and I can’t
speak highly enough of him.”

The curator laid on a special treat for the bikers. Tables with attached
parasols were laid in the grounds of the museum and the visitors had
themselves a pleasant snack with Seamus in the shadow of the Blackstairs
Mountains.