So the museum is back next week, but what have they done in the interim and what has been changed? asks MARY MULVIHILL
HIGH FASHION, delicatessen fine foods, crystal jellies and artwork – the treasures of the “Dead Zoo” include more than stuffed skins, pickled parts and skeletons in cupboards. The only rule is that the object must have some zoological connection.
So, the fashion includes a silky pair of ladies gloves, so fine that they reputedly fitted inside a walnut shell, and were knitted from the byssal threads that a large Mediterranean clam uses to anchor itself in sand. The artwork includes a delicate cameo etched on a large cowrie shell, a popular souvenir for those taking “the grand tour” in 1800.
The crystals are stunning glass models of jellyfish, anemones and microscopic marine animals, made in the 1870s by Dresden glass makers, Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka. And the delicatessen ingredients? Some grade-one birds’ nests, for making bird’s nest soup. A “cuppa soup” in a jar, albeit 150 years old.
These unexpected objects, part of the museum’s cornucopia of curios and bric-a-brac, are in the upstairs galleries that, unfortunately, remain closed to the public, pending new fire exits and access routes.
But that still leaves plenty of other treasures to discover. Like the massive sunfish from Lough Swilly, the puffer fish caught off Ardmore, the huge sturgeon found in the Liffey, long ribbon-like parasitic worms, engorged blood-filled ticks.
And are there really so many types of bird in Ireland? After numerous visits to the museum, here are a few of my favourites.
What killed the polar bear?
Shot in 1851 by Ireland’s “Arctic fox”, aka Admiral Sir Francis Leopold McClintock from Dundalk, who was searching for the missing Franklin expedition. You don’t pass up such a prize in the Arctic, so McClintock and his men later dined on bear steaks, used the fat for fuel and cooking, and saved the skin for the RDS museum.
This is museum director Nigel Monaghan’s favourite exhibit, and he has counted 11 bullet holes in the pelt. Can you spot the shot that probably finished the poor bear off?
The black Guinness head
The museum is like a cross between a taxidermy shop and a Victorian hunting lodge. Indeed, many of the exhibits were hunting trophies, especially the heads: shot by the well-to-do, and by Irishmen serving overseas with the British Army. Many of these “trophies” were donated by descendants when they had gone out of fashion. (Modern exhibits, such as the new giraffe, come from natural deaths in zoos and safari parks.)
Can you find the Indian tiger shot in 1913 by George VI? Or the black rhino, shot by Lord Moyne of the Guinness family?
The latter species sadly driven almost to extinction by such hunting exploits.
Gluttony and cannibalism among eels
All the exhibits have a story, and some even have a moral. Check out how two pickled eels downstairs died choking. But what was their last meal? A warning surely against biting off more than one can chew. Now, frog’s legs anyone?
Don’t miss the furniture, part of what makes the museum special. Elegant and functional, most cabinets were purpose-built. But notice anything unusual about the one that houses the Irish ducks? The only curved display in the museum, this was once a shop unit, rescued from a Dublin shop in the 1960s.
The surgeon, the statue and the snakebite
Most people never notice the statue in the museum’s front garden. It commemorates Roscommon-born Surgeon Major Thomas Heazle Parke (1857-93), the first Irishman to cross Africa (with Henry Stanley’s infamous expedition), and the first European to see the Ruwenzori Mountains of the Moon.
Check the panel on the statue for the snakebite incident.
