Here in Ireland, for the last 2 weeks we have had the most exquisite weather. It’s been sort of warm (warm for here being somewhere between 11 and 15 C) and rather sunny. I took a trip to Northern Ireland (more on that later) and on April 1 (April fools day) I went to brunch at the schoolhouse bar near the Grand Canal:

It wasn’t hot, but it was warm enough to sit outside in a nice new spring jacket that I got for my birthday

and enjoy the atmosphere. From there, I walked down past Merrion Square Park (they have an amazing outdoor art gallery there on the weekends) enjoying the work of the individual artists and checking out the Georgian buildings.

From there, I noticed that the Irish Museum of Natural History was open, and because it was getting chilly / looked like rain decided that a free museum visit could be just the ticket. To say the least, it’s not at all what I was expecting – for the Natural History museums I’ve been in, they start with the natural world and include things like the flora/fauna fossils that developed into the dinosaurs and so on. This was just a bunch of creepy stuffed animals (spread over 4 floors), which over the years have earned this place the nickname of “the dead zoo”.

Some kid is going to have nightmares tonight…

After about 5 minutes in the place, I had the willies. As you enter, you’re towered over by the skeleton of an 8 foot Giant Irish deer, and all around the room are the heads of various animals staring down at the main gallery. It’s dark, dank, and dusty – and crowded with families who piled in to get out of the forboding weather. I thought that this may not turn out well, but decided to perservere. The main floor was all dead Irish animals – with a huge emphasis on fish, crustaceons, round and flat worms, corals, and various creepy crawlies. They had a huge display on bugs (including lice and ticks and how they live “with” humans), slugs, and bees. They had a few moths and butterflies (ok those were not so creepy even with the pins through their thoraxes) which are now extinct; and they also had a few starfish which were all in jars of formaldehyde alongside random shellaced fish that were slowly decomposing and had turned white / bug-eyed with age.

When I couldn’t take it anymore, I opened a set of double doors and followed a wide georgian style staircase up to the second floor, thinking that it had to get better. Ugh, no. Sadly, It just got more wickedly creepy. In here were the stuffed mammals (the other 3 floors were closed) from around the world stacked floor to ceiling – and the lighting was better because of the skylight above.

The thing is that once again the ancient cases were stuffed to capacity with 100 + year old specimins that were strangely preserved and again, off color because of dust and light. In some cases the animals were not labelled very well (if at all) – and I found the the style that someone used to preserve the animals quite creepy.

Some of the cute animals were made with angry / strange expressions where their “fangs” were out (seriously? wallabees and kangroos don’t have fangs!). Some you could tell that they were not kindly treated – (the rino missing the horn; the elephant with shreadded ears; the hippo missing teeth and looking like he was fresh off the autopsy table). Then there was the big animals – which in some cases still had the bullet holes in their heads or were lopsided because of the options used to put them back together.

Even some of the ones that were more “normal” – had strange expressions like – You’re going to put what where?!?!

I will say, however, that the worst was the one above. This one haunted my dreams on Sunday night…It’s like a little nightmare demon monkey of some sort. The taxidermy on most of these animals was such that even the cutest things were made to look like they were going to kill you in your sleep, suck your blood, or just were plotting the demise. I’m not planning on a return trip – and I wouldn’t take kids there – despite the fact that many parents did. Perhaps it’s because it’s cheaper than a trip to the Dublin Zoo? Either way, it was free- and they desperately need donations (no kidding people! They need some lighting and some labels!) so if you’re into this kind of thing, I suppose it’s not as bad as some would lead you to believe…