vegetarian in a leather jacket: July 2014

Julian Opie's Suzanne Walking in Leather Skirt, 2006, outside the entrance of the Hugh Lane. Photo by Renée DeVoe Mertz, May 30, 2013.

The core collection of Dublin City Gallery–The Hugh Lane is made up of the Impressionist paintings donated by the museum's namesake, Sir Hugh Lane, to the Dublin Corporation in 1905. At the time, however, the Corporation was unprepared to house the works, and Lane began to look for a more suitable home for his gift. He had already begun transferring paintings to the National Gallery, London, when Dublin proposed Charlemont House as a possible site for the museum. Lane agreed to the new arrangement, but died before his revised will could be witnessed. The result was a nearly 50-year dispute that was eventually resolved with the somewhat awkward arrangement of the two museums swapping the works every five years.

The current collection of the Dublin City Gallery has expanded to include a wide variety of media—from stained glass to digital arts—made by both Irish and international artists throughout the last century-and-a-half. Since 2001, the museum has also served as the new home for Francis Bacon's former London studio. John Edwards, the bartender-model-companion who inherited Bacon's estate in 1992, donated the studio's contents—including its walls, ceiling, floor, and doors—to the Hugh Lane in 1998, and the gallery meticulously reconstructed the room in all its messy glory. The installation is now viewable behind glass windows and through peep-holes.

Google Maps image of downtown Dublin (modified by author).

National Museum of Ireland–Archaeology and Natural History Museum

The National Museum of Ireland was originally founded in 1877 when, under the Dublin Science and Art Museum Act, the government purchased the growing collections of Leinster House (now the seat of parliament) and the Natural History Museum. Today, the NMI is divided into four branches: Archaeology, Natural History, Decorative Arts and History, and Country Life. Each branch occupies a separate building, and only the first three are in Dublin. Both the museums of Archaeology and Natural History are located within easy walking distance of Trinity College, the National Gallery, and each other, making it possible to visit all four on the same day.

Archaeology [photography not permitted in most galleries]

The Archaeology branch of the National Museum contains a variety of artifacts—including objects from Rome, Cyprus, and Egypt―although the heart of its collection comes from Ireland itself. The museum's extensive holdings span prehistory to the Middle Ages. In addition to several of the world's finest examples of Celtic art, they include one of Europe's largest collections of prehistoric goldwork and Iron Age bog bodies.

Originally opened in 1890, the building was designed in a Victorian Palladian style by the Cork architects Thomas Newenham Deane and Thomas Manly Deane. The ornate interior is nearly as impressive as the collection itself. In the central court, lacey patterns of cast iron ring the balcony and support the roof like giant, load-bearing doilies, while majolica fireplaces and carved wooden panels ring the walls of other galleries.

We visited the museum towards the end of our first day in Ireland, and my initial jetlag made it difficult to absorb the copious information sprinkled throughout the galleries. If you are awake for it, though, a visit to the museum of Archaeology can be an ideal introduction to the island's history, artifacts, and sites.

Natural History Museum

When Ireland's museum of natural history opened in 1857 with an inaugural lecture by the internationally renowned Scottish explorer, Dr. David Livingstone, Dublin was one of the most important cities of the British Empire. As a result, the museum served as a repository for animal, vegetal, and geological specimens sent back by Britain's agents from around the globe. Today, the museum looks much the way it did in the 19th century. The building consists of three floors of exhibition space, only two of which are open to the public: the lower floor is dedicated to the flora and fauna of the island, while the second story displays mammals from around the world.

The Natural History Museum predates the founding of the National Museum of Ireland by about 20 years, making it the oldest branch of the NMI. Parts of its original collection have since relocated to other institutions―including the museum of Archaeology―but it still houses a rare collection of life-like sea creatures made by the 19th century glass artists Rudolf and Leopold Blaschka.

Unfortunately, the institution is woefully underfunded, leaving many of the specimens in tatters and causing the balcony galleries, where the majority of the Blaschkas’ models reside, to close. But the feelings of neglect and loss that permeate the galleries are no less due to the taxidermy and display choices of the past and present curators. In death, many of the animals have been assigned strong personalities, sometimes presented with bared teeth or open mouths, as if silently growling or screaming at the passing visitor. In other, more disturbing, instances, the animals appear to be frightened or startled. In one case, a tiger looks timidly upward, seemingly afraid of its surroundings. In another, a new-born zebra sits alone in its vitrine against a wall. The juxtaposition of the foal’s simulated alertness and innocence with the reality of its death and isolation is particularly disquieting. I could only wonder how it came to be there, and then wish that I hadn't.

Still, even the more questionable curatorial choices speak to a certain―albeit dark―sense of humor that saves the displays from being purely bleak examples of monetary neglect.