The museum on top of centuries' worth of burials that has dentures made of dead men's teeth

The Irish Wake Museum in Waterford indulges Irish people’s fascination with death and all its customs, writes Sarah Horgan

Curators Clíona Purcell and Donnchadh O’Ceallacháin outside the Irish Wake Museum in Waterford city. Picture: Chani Anderson

Adorned with real human teeth on a solid gold base, one of Ireland’s oldest known set of dentures may be among the country’s most disturbingly quirky excavation finds, laid bare at the distinctly chilling Wake Museum in Waterford. 

A beeswax death mask from 1657 of Luke Wadding, the Franciscan friar whose efforts we have to thank for making March 17 St Patrick’s Day. Picture: Chani Anderson