3 days ago
Dublin city museum to reopen after two year refurbishment
The thumb of a statue in O'Connell Street that was a casualty of the Italia 90 homecoming, bottles from Dublin's original craft beer producers and swearing Podge and Rodge toys are among the artefacts that can be seen as the Little Museum of Dublin reopens its doors on St Stephen's Green on Wednesday after a two year makeover.
The re-imagined attraction tells the social and cultural hsitory of Dublin through everyday items donated by members of the public.
Since it opened its doors in 2011, the museum has accumulated more than 6,000 objects which it has curated to tell an offbeat and often humorous history of the capital.
The eclectic collection, which began with a millennium milk bottle, now includes everything from Mary McAleese's communion rosary beads to medicines owned by Marty Whelan's mother.
A class picture from Mount Temple Secondary School featuring the future members of U2 are among the new additions to the collection in the now expanded and accessible space, which included a dedicated U2 and Irish music room.
The museum's deputy curator, Dr Daryl Hendley Rooney highlighted some of the more curious parts of the collection, including a marble thumb that tells the story of Italia 90.
"The heroes of Italy had come back. They were paraded through town on an open top bus and a little boy had climbed up a statue, and he accidentally pulled off the thumb, which hit the ground beside this woman.
"She picked it up and had intended on giving it back to the Office of Public Works or the National Monument Service, but like every good Irish procrastinator it has been in our house for the last few decades," Dr Rooney said
As part of their most recent appeal the museum also received a donation of a set of three boxing gloves from the Ó Colmáin family who live in a former forge just off Camden Street, where a blacksmith made his mark on Irish sporting history.
"Gerry Ó Colmáin was a boxer. He was the first and he's the hitherto last Irish European boxing heavyweight champion.
"In 1947, he won in that final and it was actually the unusual thing it was here in Dublin, so he won on home soil," Dr Rooney said.
He added: "In the final, he was boxing an English guy, and he hit him so hard that he burst his glove, and that was the glove that he burst. So, he ended up boxing with three gloves in that final."
A row of bottles also tells the recent history of Guinness in Dublin and sheds light on the original makers of craft beer in the capital.
"Dublin Pale Ale, Mountjoy's Nourishing Stout and Findlaters Invalid Stout.
"The idea that they were given to people to basically replenish their stores and it wasn't uncommon for pregnant women to be given a bottle of Guinness or stout to basically replenish their energy levels and make them hardy again," he said.
"Most people don't realise that Guinness didn't actually bottle their own brew until the 60s.
"This bottle here was bottled by Lawson Wilson and Co in Dublin. Nearys and McDaids, they would have had all their own licensing bottling labels and at one time, in the 1930s Guinness were producing over 1.5 million labels a day."
The museum's CEO, Sarah Clancy, said the reimagined space gives people of all generations an opportunity to experience the history of the city.
"As a storytelling museum, we managed to create these really magical moments.
"We'd have locals coming in on family day out, or whatever it might be, and one of our tour guides might tell a story.
"And there's that lovely moment where somewhere, someone interjects and goes, 'oh, actually, I was there. That's not quite what happened'."
The expanded museum will have new features that are targeted at educating younger children about the history of Dublin.
It will also include a unique doll's house and an animal exhibition that will tell stories about a much-loved elephant in Dublin Zoo and the lion that once escaped onto Fairview Strand.
The renovation work at the not-for-profit museum in a former Georgian townhouse cost €4.3m was funded by donations from Dublin City Council, Fáilte Ireland, the Departments of Tourism and a number of other benefactors.
But old favourites remain, including one of the most popular exhibits, a leather-bound copy of the 1988 telephone book, which almost every Dubliner who visits will leaf through to see if they can locate their family name and relatives.
Donated artefacts like these have been the lifeblood of this museum and the Little Museum of Dublin will continue to welcome more into the future.
