A Tour Inside the Spectacular National Museum of Ireland

Museums are, by far, one of the greatest inventions humans have ever come up with.

Just like we should not depend on our memories to recall what we need to do and better use a task management system to organise our lives, humans, and on a much bigger scale, came up with museums to preserve their history and culture, document the progress they are making, and educate the new generations about the world as a whole. More specifically, museums are home to what our ancestors left us and survived for thousands of years. These could include artefacts, paintings, tools, clothing, or anything we label ‘bygone’.

Many of the most iconic museums in the world happen to be in Europe. For instance, the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, England, established in 1683, was the first to be built worldwide. France’s Louvre Museum, on the other hand, is currently the world’s most well-known, most visited, and most significant museum. It was built on an area of 72,735 square metres and welcomes over nine million visitors every year.

Another leading and one of the oldest museums in Europe is the National Museum of Ireland. It displays an incredible collection of artefacts, the largest in the world. Most of these artefacts belong to Ireland, while the rest are from other ancient civilisations.

In this article, we are taking you on a tour of this fantastic place, which serves as a doorway to Irish history, heritage, and culture. So bring yourself a cup of coffee, and let’s hop into it.

The National Museum of Ireland

The National Museum of Ireland is the country’s most prominent museum institution. It provides easy access to everything in Ireland and highlights the country’s most distinct historical periods and achievements in a highly organized and entertaining way.

This museum has an area of 34,000 square metres in total; however, it is not just a single chunk of land but rather four.

Branches

In other words, the National Museum of Ireland comprises four different branches. Each branch has a separate area, a specialised collection, and a distinct architectural style. It is located in a different place in Dublin, with just one of the four branches out of town. The four museums showcase about four million items and welcome over 1.5 million visitors annually.

The first branch is the National Museum of Ireland Archaeology. It is located on Kildare Street, Dublin and is the most spacious of the four, with an area of 12,000 square metres. Not too far from there, only a distance of 2.6 kilometres or a 34-minute walk, the National Museum of Ireland Decorative Arts is located, whose area is 10,000 square metres.

The third branch is the National Museum of Ireland’s Natural History. It is just three kilometres from the decorative arts museum but has a smaller area of 7,000 square metres. Last but not least is the National Museum of Ireland Country Life. This one is the farthest, located outside Dublin in County Mayo, over 200 kilometres away.

As their names suggest, each museum displays exceptionally distinct exhibits; we will learn more about that. As mentioned earlier, most displayed items focus more on Irish history and heritage.

Establishment 

The National Museum of Ireland is, in fact, one of the oldest museums in Europe, dating back to August 1877. Of course, not all four branches were constructed at the same time.

So, how did this museum come into existence?

The Royal Dublin Society suggested establishing a leading museum for Ireland. The purpose was to preserve the country’s culture, arts, and history, which was and still is the primary goal of this society. The new museum was also to collect every historical item, no matter how tiny or gigantic, and display them in a single place. 

Collecting the artefacts started sometime in the mid-19th century; some even say it started in the late 18th century. At the time, so many artefacts and monuments were owned by and scattered in different institutions in Ireland.

However, the collections turned out to be larger and more diverse than expected. So, they were categorised based on their historical context, organised into different sections, and put on display. When this first museum was chock-full, a new one was built to host the extra artefacts, and so on, until the National Museum of Ireland ended up having four branches.

Now, let’s dive deeper into and learn more about these branches.

1. The National Museum of Ireland – Decorative Arts

The National Museum of Ireland Decorative Arts was the first to establish itself as the single new home to all the artefacts scattered around the country. It was established in 1887 on Benburb Street, Dublin, in an area of almost 10,000 square metres, and was called the Dublin Museum of Science and Art then.

The building that hosts the museum used to be the military Collins Barracks. They were built in the 18th century but were later converted into a museum. That is why the decorative arts museum is the least distinct among all four branches in terms of architecture.

As simple as a military barrack can be, this museum was made of bricks and had four floors. Its structure resembles that of the Pantheon in Rome, featuring a giant clock. There is also a large yard in front of it. Despite the distinct architecture, this military barrack could have been chosen for this museum since most of the exhibits, estimated to be 150,000 in total, are related to Ireland’s and the military’s history in particular.

This museum is divided into two primary sections of 14 galleries. The first section is devoted to Irish military history, with exhibits such as soldier uniforms, weapons, bullets, and other military items. There are also unique Irish decorations used in different historical events, field guns, and photographs from the Revolution of Ireland. One gallery is dedicated to the 1916 Easter Rising leaders, the armed rebellion initiated by Irish Republicans against British rule.

The second section, on the other hand, is for the decorative arts. It shows different collections of furniture, jewellery, clothing, coins, silver textiles, ceramics, custom glassware, and even Asian art. One can visit the decorative arts museum anytime from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Sundays and Mondays. Admission is free.

2. The National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology

When the decorative arts museum’s storage space was too full to accommodate any more artefacts, a second museum had to be built, which happened to be the National Museum of Ireland Archaeology.

The National Museum of Ireland Archaeology, standing on an area of 12,000 square metres, was designed by father-and-son architects Thomas Newenham Deane and Thomas Manly Deane. They chose a unique 16th-century Victorian Palladian architecture style for it. The museum welcomed its first-ever visitors on 29 August 1890.

The archaeology museum building features a 20-metre-high dome and a portico entrance supported by six marble columns. The entrance hall has a terrific floor of mosaics resembling Irish history and mythology scenes. At the same time, the interior is decorated with Greek and Roman-style motifs.

The halls have beautifully carved wood doors. There is also a relatively large fireplace decorated with Majorca tiles. With such a big area, the museum has two floors connected by a beautifully structured staircase. The ground floor has the grand central court, and the upper one has a balcony overlooking the central court, which is held by cast iron columns.

This museum has 11 halls or galleries, each dedicated to a different part of Irish history. Rooms are dedicated to prehistoric Ireland, the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Viking Age, the Celts, the early Christian period, and the Medieval period. Exhibits from the centuries from the 17th to the 20th are also hosted in individual halls.

The collections belonging to all these different periods of history include gold works, jewellery, Viking swords, manuscripts, and even skeletons of people who lived in the Iron Age. There are also small shrines containing many scripts, figures, and sculptures.

The most special hall is the Treasury Hall, which hosts some of the museum’s most precious artefacts. The National Museum of Ireland Archaeology is open simultaneously with the Decorative Arts Museum. However, the museum is closed on Christmas Day, Saint Stephen’s Day, and Good Friday. The entrance is also free.

3. The National Museum of Ireland – Natural History

Nicknamed The Dead Zoo, the National Museum of Ireland Natural History was built in 1856 to host collections related to Ireland’s geology, zoology, and botany. It is located on Merrion Street in Dublin.

The museum, which covers an area of 11,000 square metres, was designed by Irish architect Frederick Clarendon, who gave it a Victorian style. Again, the purpose of building this extraordinary museum was to host the ever-growing collection of the Royal Dublin Society. That is why the museum has been expanding ever since it was built in the mid-19th century. 2007, the museum was closed for restoration and reopened to the public in 2010.

From the inside, the Natural History Museum might look like an archaeology museum. It has a grand central hall and a second floor with a balcony overlooking that main hall. In fact, the museum has four floors. All used to be accessible, but two of them have been closed since 2007.

What is very special about this museum is the excellent exhibits it displays.

The entire collection is divided into four categories. The first one is Vertebrate Zoology, which shows more than 1.5 million specimens of different vertebrates, such as birds, reptiles, fish, and mammals.

The second category of exhibits is Invertebrate Zoology. It comprises over 500,000 specimens of insects, spiders, worms, molluscs, and many other invertebrates. Then there is this area for geology, housing over 100,000 samples of rocks, crystals, gemstones, and many other minerals. Finally, there is the Palaeontology area, comprising hundreds of thousands of dinosaur fossils and other extinct mammals and plants.

These collections are distributed over 14 galleries, with the first category, Vertebrate Zoology, occupying at least four galleries. Some galleries are dedicated to Irish animals and birds, and others display animals from the rest of the world, whether extinct or on the verge of extinction. The museum used to display a botany collection ever since it was established. However, this was moved to a new location, the National Botanic Gardens, in 1970.

Besides the 14 galleries and the museum’s incredible collection, a planetarium hosts entertaining and educational shows, most of which are focused on astronomy. Additionally, there is an extensive library of books, volumes, documents and journals about natural history. The Natural History Museum was recently used as a filming location for various dramas and as a wedding venue. It is open for visits at the same times as the previous two museums. Admission is also free.

4. The National Museum of Ireland – Country Life

This is the fourth and smallest part of the National Museum of Ireland. Unlike all the three museums we mentioned above, which are situated in Dublin and relatively close to one another, this one is very far. It is located in Turlough Village, eight kilometres from County Mayo, which, in turn, is over 250 kilometres away from Dublin. The National Museum of Ireland Country Life is also the most recently established. It was opened in September 2001 and has been welcoming over 100,000 visitors every year.

The building that currently hosts this museum was, in fact, designed by Thomas Newenham Deane, who co-designed the Museum of Archaeology with his father. Built in 1867, the house belonged to a landowner family in Turlough called Fitzgerald. Over a century after its establishment, in 1991, the Mayo County Council bought the house and started renovating it to turn it into a museum, which it did. This country life museum opened in 2001 and displayed Irish country life and how people of rural areas lived from 1850 until the mid-20th century.

Interestingly, the building is not the only thing unique about this museum. Still, the area around it is also perfect for a museum for country life. The entire block is as large as 809,371 square metres. The building, which is a Victorian Gothic style, occupies an area of 2,800 square metres. It is surrounded by a super large, gorgeous garden displaying a wide variety of trees and flowers and has trails suitable for walking. There is a lake with tiny little islands as well.

The museum has two floors. The ground floor includes the galleries, while the upstairs rooms are museum staff offices. Some exhibits are always on display, while others are temporary, which means they are only sometimes available for display. Attached to the museum are a parking space, cafe, and gift shop that sells souvenirs and minor artefacts. The exhibits displayed in the museum are sectioned into four groups. The first group is the home, which explores the different architectural styles of rural homes in Ireland from the mid-19th century to the mid-20th century.

Then, there is the farm, where the exhibits showcase how people used to work on the farm and the agricultural methods and tools they used. The third section is the Community, which displays the connections between the people at the time, how they communicated, and what kinds of relationships they had. The last section is dedicated to the nature of Ireland, how people used to live there, and how nature affected their lifestyle. Entrance to the Country Life Museum is free of charge, and it is also open at the exact same times as the previous three museums.

If you are considering visiting Ireland anytime soon, take some time to check the Irish cultural perspective to have a fantastic stay in the country. Also, ensure you include paying for any, some, or all of these national museums a visit. They are the best place to explore Ireland’s precious culture, rich history and traditions. Besides the vast number of items on display, the buildings that host them are great architectural masterpieces showing the excellence and mastery of Irish architects.