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The National Museum of Ireland - Natural History
The National Museum of Ireland - Natural History has approximately 10,000 animals on display which have been drawn from collections of over 2,000,000 specimens. These collections have been accumulating for over two centuries. Today this zoological museum encompasses outstanding examples of wildlife from Ireland and the far corners of the globe, some still to be seen today and others long extinct.
Just two years before Charles Darwin published his famous work on .The Origin of Species., the Natural History Museum, Merrion Street was opened to the public for the first time, in 1857. This building was designed by Frederick V. Clarendon and is the oldest purpose-built museum building in Ireland, still used as originally intended. The museum is famous for its Victorian cabinet style, which houses .one of the world.s finest and fullest collections., still to be seen today. The early origins of the museum lies with the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) who began gathering these collections in the 18th century. It was the enactment of The Dublin Science and Art Museum Act of 1877 which led to the transfer of the Natural History building and its collections to state ownership.
The National Museum of Ireland - Natural History is home to the Natural History Division which is responsible for caring for the Museum collections in the disciplines of zoology and geology. In 2001 the Earth Science Section of the Division moved from rented accommodation to relocate to Collins Barracks where new offices, a library and archive rooms have been established. When the large second-phase building at Collins Barracks is completed it will house an Earth Science gallery dedicated to the geological collections of the Natural History Division.
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