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.