National Museum

The National Museum of Ireland is the nation’s premier cultural institution and that with the strongest emphasis on Ireland’s art, material culture and natural history.

 The collections and exhibitions are located in four sites, three in Dublin and one in the west in Co. Mayo.

The National Museum of Ireland - Decorative Arts and History at Collins Barracks (also the main administrative headquarters) has state of the art exhibitions on costume and clothing, coins and furniture.Among its collections there are Irish Silver and Eileen Gray (Gray was an Irish-born designer whose collection and archive we recently acquired). The museum at Collins Barracks has a changing programme of temporary exhibitions, lecture series and an outdoor programme of summer events. It also has a corporate entertainment space and café. It displays  the ethnographical collection (some of which was collected on Captain Cooke’s voyages in the South Seas!) as well as geology and Irish history. As it stands, the Museum of Decorative Arts and History is well worth a half-day’s visit.

The National Museum of Ireland - Archaeology and History on Kildare Street exhibits Ireland’s world famous collection of Bronze Age gold ornaments and unparalleled Irish early Christian treasures such as the Ardagh Chalice, the Derrynaflan Hoard, the Tara Brooch, the Shrine of St Patrick’s Bell and the recently restored Tully Lough Cross. Our Kildare St. premises also houses the Viking Ireland and Medieval Ireland galleries; the former with the artefacts recovered in the Wood Quay excavations and the latter the sacred reliquaries of the Irish Later Middle Ages. One can savour the distinctiveness and achievement of ancient Ireland first hand by visiting these galleries.

The third Dublin branch is the National Museum of Ireland - Natural History on Merrion Street. This is the oldest part of the museum and has been open on this location for a century and a half. Skeletons of giant Irish deer preside at the entrance to the display of native fauna on the ground floor. Upstairs you will see animals from every corner of the globe and above this on the balconies all manner of animals, birds, insects and the celebrated Blaschka glass model collection. The Museum has approximately ten thousand animals on display, which were drawn fron the Museum's collections of over two millions specimens. Please note that the Natural History Museum is temporarily closed for refurbishment.

The new branch of the National Museum is located on the Dublin side of Castlebar at Turlough Park in Co. Mayo. Here is a new purpose-built museum in which our folklife collection is used to create the National Museum of Ireland - Country Life. The exhibits here introduce you to the way of life of people in the countryside up to a generation or so ago. As at our other sites, the education staff provide guided tours and supervise outdoor activities, events and lectures appropriate to the collections. There are also temporary exhibitions, a restaurant as well as a museum shop, so you can easily spend a full day in this special place.