This museum contains the largest collection of Celtic
artifacts in the world, ranging from 7000 BC to the present day. The
antiquities include gold jewelry,
carved stones, bronze tools, and weapons. Among
the priceless relics on display are a late Bronze Age gold collar known as the
Gleninsheen Gorget; the 8th-century Ardagh Chalice, a two-handled silver cup
with gold filigree ornamentation; the bronze-coated, iron St. Patrick's Bell,
the oldest surviving example (5th-8th centuries) of Irish metalwork; the
8th-century Tara Brooch, an intricately decorated piece made of white bronze,
amber, and glass; and the 12th-century bejeweled oak Cross of Cong, covered
with silver and bronze panels. The Road to Independence Room containts
artifacts from the 1916 Easter Rising and the 1919-1921 War of Independence,
including uniforms, weapons, banners, and a piece of the flag that flew over
the General Post Office, held by the rebels during Easter Week 1916. There is
also a Viking exhibit that includes weapons, leather work, a Viking skeleton,
and a small Viking ship.
Dublin Writers
Museum
This unique museum is in a magnificently restored 18th
Century townhouse, once the home of John Jameson of the Jameson Whisky family,
north of Parnell Square. The exhibition centers
on the Gallery of Writers, an enormous drawing room gorgeously decorated with
paintings, Adamesque plasterwork, and a deep Edwardian lincrusta frieze. Rare
manuscripts, diaries, posters, letters, limited and first editions,
photographs, and other mementos commemorate the lives and works of Ireland’s greatest writers. Those writers include Joyce, Shaw,
J. M. Synge, Lady Gregory, Yeats, Beckett, and others. An 1804 edition of
Swift's Gulliver's Travels, an 1899 first edition of Bram Stoker's Dracula, and
an 1899 edition of Wilde's Ballad of Reading Gaol are included in the display.
There's a "Teller of Tales" exhibit showcasing Behan, O'Flaherty, and
O'Faoláin