Waking up the dead: Much-loved ‘Dead Zoo’ is back following revamp

The National Museum of Ireland’s Natural History facility — best known to Dubliners as The Dead Zoo — was faced with moving its entire collection of preserved specimens and models into storage. Ahead of an RTÉ 1 documentary on the task, and its reopening, Mike McGrath-Bryan speaks with senior curator Paolo Viscardi

Nigel Monaghan, keeper at the Natural History Museum, hogs the spotlight. The National Museum of Ireland - Natural History partially reopens at Merrion Street Upper, Dublin on Aug 2.

Throughout 2020, the curators, keeper and staff of Dublin’s National Museum of Ireland — Natural History facility, were tasked with dismantling and moving a collection of thousands of animal specimens into storage, as the Merrion Street building that housed the city’s much-loved ‘Dead Zoo’ was beginning to show its age after over a century.

It was no mean feat to plan and execute a months-long move, that ranged from priceless mahogany cabinets full of preserved specimens and intricately-detailed models, to dismantling and unmounting a full-size whale skeleton from the facility’s ceiling.