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This museum is temporarily closed. It is expected to remain closed pending a restoration programme. This is currently (as of 2008) expected to take 3-4 years.
Our Museum in Kildare Street (National Museum of Ireland - Archaeology) is currently standing in as a venue for events and workshops that would otherwise have been held in Natural History.
Also, a selection of pieces from the Natural History Museum's collections will be on display in the Riding School at The National Museum of Ireland - Decorative Arts & History, Collins Barracks from early 2009. Further details on dates will be announced late in 2008 or early in 2009.
We are looking forward to the time when we can announce the re-opening of Natural History.
This museum is crammed with antique glass cabinets containing stuffed animals from around the world. The Irish room on the ground floor holds exhibits on Irish wildlife. Inside the front door are three huge skeletons of the extinct giant deer, better known as the "Irish elk". Also on this floor are shelves stacked with jars of bizarre creatures such as octopuses, leeches and worms preserved in embalming fluid. The upper gallery houses the noted Blaschka Collection of glass models of marine life, and a display of Buffalo and Deer trophies. Suspended from the ceiling are the skeletons of a fin whale, found at Bantry Bay in 1862, and a Humpback whale, which was found stranded at Inishcrone in County Sligo in 1893.
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