Ulster Museum

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Exterior of Ulster Museum designed by James Cumming Wynne.
Exterior of Ulster Museum designed by James Cumming Wynne.

The Ulster Museum is located in the Botanical Gardens in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and has around 8,000 square metres of public display space, featuring material from the collections of Fine and Applied Art, Archaeology, Ethnography, Treasures from the Spanish Armada, Local History, Numismatics, Industrial Archaeology, Botany, Zoology and Geology. It is the largest museum in Northern Ireland.[1]

The museum is currently closed until 2009 for refurbishment.

Contents

[edit] History

The Museum was founded as the Belfast Natural History Society in 1821 and began exhibiting in 1833. It has included an art gallery since 1890. In 1929 the museum moved to its present location, the new building was designed by James Cumming Wynne. A major extension by Francis Pym was begun in 1962 and opened in 1964. It is in the Brutalist Style, praised by David Evans for the “almost barbaric power of its great cubic projections and cantilevers brooding over the conifers of the botanic gardens like a mastodon”.

Since the 1940s the Ulster Museum has built up very good collection of art by modern Irish, and particularly Northern Irish, artists.

In 1998, the Ulster Museum, which includes Armagh County Museum,[1] merged with the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum [2] to form the National Museums and Galleries of Northern Ireland, MAGNI.

In July 2005, a £12m refurbishment of the museum was announced, with funding coming from the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure.[2] In October 2006 the museum closed its doors until 2009, to allow for the refurbishment work.[3]

[edit] Exhibits

The Triceratops exhibit at Ulster Museum.
The Triceratops exhibit at Ulster Museum.

The Ulster Museum contains important collections of birds, Irish mammals, insects, molluscs, marine invertebrates, flowering plants, algae and lichens, as well as an archive of books and manuscripts relating to Irish natural history. The museum also maintains a natural history website named Habitas.[4] In the late 1980s and the early 1990s it had a permanent exhibition on dinosaurs which has since been scaled back considerably. There is also a collection of rocks, minerals and fossils.

[edit] Zoology

[edit] List of zoological collections

[edit] Historic

[edit] Recent

[edit] Important Individual Specimens

Giant Spider Crab
Giant Spider Crab

[edit] Wildlife art

The Zoology Department also maintains collections of Wildlife Art. Works by Peter Scott, Joseph Wolf, Eric Ennion, John Gerrard Keulemans, Roger Tory Peterson, Charles Tunnicliffe, Robert Gillmor and Archibald Thorburn are included. Illustrated works held by the Zoology Department include British Entomology - being illustrations and descriptions of the genera of insects found in Great Britain and Ireland — a classic work of entomology by John Curtis and Niccolò Gualtieri's Index Testarum Conchyliorum, quae adservantur in Museo Nicolai Gualtieri 1742.

[edit] Botany

[edit] The Herbarium (BEL)

The herbarium in the Ulster Museum (BEL),[3] is based on specimens from Belfast Natural History and Philosophical Society (founded in 1821); the Belfast Naturalists' Field Club (founded in 1863); the Belfast Museum and Art Gallery (formed 1905) and the herbarium (BFT) of the Botany Departmeny of Queen's University, Belfast acquired in 1968. In total the number of specimens is more than 100,000. Although specimens from Northern Ireland are well represented, specimens from elsewhere in the world have been acquired by donation, exchange and purchase. All branches of the world's flora are represented: algae, lichens, fungi, mosses and pteridophytes (ferns), conifers and angiosperms. Little information about the Irish flora before 1830 is available, the oldest specimen in the Ulster Museum is an alga: Batrachospermum moniliforme (BEL: F41) collected in 1798 by John Templeton, other specimens of Batrachospermum, originally incorrectly identified as Thorea ramoissima were collected by John Templeton in 1815 from a "boghole" in Co. Donegal (BEL:F42 - F47). It was originally published by Harvey in 1841.[6]

[edit] List of some of the collectors

[edit] 1960s Art

(See also List of years in art#1960s)

The collection contains works by:

[edit] Past Art Exhibitions

[edit] Partial List

[edit] Ethnographic Collections

[edit] Girona

The museum acquired Armada artefacts from the Galleass Girona (ship) in 1971.

[edit] Renovation Programme

Refurbishment under way - February 2008
Refurbishment under way - February 2008

The Ulster Museum is now closed to the public for renovation, this will take about three years and cost about £12m. Its character will be dramatically changed. Meanwhile all the specimens are lodged in an outside store. Books and journals, not regularly required, have been sent to an archive store and temporary buildings have been erected for the academic staff while the building is being renovated. In May 2007, however, builders had not actually been appointed to conduct the work.

While the museum is closed, it is organising an extensive programme of travelling exhibitions around Northern Ireland, and information on the Ulster Museum's collections is available on its website.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Tourist sites in NI
  2. ^ Museums | DCAL Internet
  3. ^ BBC News
  4. ^ http://www.habitas.org.uk.
  5. ^ Ulster Museum
  6. ^ Harvey, W.H. 1841.A Manual of the British Algae:... London
  7. ^ Treasures, Museum Victoria celebrates 150 years, Australia, Victoria, Melbourne

[edit] Bibliography

  • Hackney, P. 1972. Notes on the vascular plant herbarium of the Ulster Museum. Ir. Nat. J. 17: 230 - 233.
  • Hackney, P. 1980. Some early nineteenth century herbaria in Belfast. 20: 114 - 119.
  • Hackney, P. 1981. British vascular plant collection of the Ulster Museum. Biology Curators' Group. 2: 2 - 3.
  • Nesbitt, N. 1979. A Museum in Belfast. Ulster Museum.
  • McMillan, N.F. and Morton, O. 1979. A Victorian album of algae from the north of Ireland with specimens collected by William Sawers. Ir. Nat. J. 19: 384 - 387.
  • Morton, O. 1977a. A note on W.H.Harvey's algae in the Ulster Museum. Ir. Nat. J. 18: 26.
  • Morton, O. 1977b. Sylvanus Wear's algal collection in the Ulster Museum. Ir. Nat. J. 19: 92 - 93.
  • Morton, O. 1980. Three algal collections in the Ulster Museum herbarium. Ir. Nat. J. 20: 33 - 37.
  • Morton, O. 1981a. Algae in Biology Curators Group Newsletter. 3: 12 - 13.
  • Morton, O. 1981b American algae collected by W.H.Harvey and others, in the Ulster Museum Herbarium. Taxon 30: 867 - 868.
  • Morton, O. 1994. Marine Algae of Northern Ireland. Ulster Museum, Belfast. ISBN 0 900761 28 8
  • Praeger, R.L. 1949. Some Irish Naturalist.

[edit] External links


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Museums and Public Galleries in Ireland

Craggaunowen · Chester Beatty Library · Cobh Heritage Centre · Crawford Municipal Art Gallery · Donegal County Museum · Donegal Railway Centre · Downpatrick & County Down Railway† · Dublin Writers Museum · Hugh Lane Municipal Gallery · Hunt Museum · Irish Jewish Museum · Irish Museum of Modern Art · Irish Republican History Museum† · James Joyce Centre · James Joyce Tower and Museum · Kerry County Museum · Kilmainham Gaol · Marsh's Library · Museum of Country Life · National Gallery of Ireland · National Library of Ireland · National Maritime Museum of Ireland · National Museum of Ireland · National Print Museum of Ireland · National Transport Museum of Ireland · National Wax Museum · Natural History Museum · Ormeau Baths Gallery† · Pearse Museum · Somme Heritage Centre† · Saint Patrick Visitor Centre† · State Heraldic Museum · Ulster American Folk Park† · Ulster Folk and Transport Museum† · Ulster Museum† · Waterford Museum of Treasures

† indicates Northern Ireland
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