irishtimes.com - Last Updated: Friday, October 21, 2011, 18:08
'Little Museum of Dublin' opens
Trevor White, director of the Little Museum of Dublin, examines an exhibit in the museum which opens at 15 St Stephen?s Green tonight. Photograph: Alan Betson.
External Video: The Little Museum of Dublin The Irish Times takes no responsibility for the content or availability of other websites MICHELLE STEIN
Dublin has welcomed a new museum to its cultural landscape. The Little Museum of Dublin, a showcase of social, political and cultural history of the city, officially opened today. Some of the items in its collection, including the lectern US president John F Kennedy used to address the Oireachtas during his visit to Ireland in 1963 are politically and historically significant. Others, like the collection of Dublin milk bottles through the ages and a model of the Wanderly Wagon, used to shoot flying scenes in the old television show, are simply nostalgic. “We believe that every great city deserves a museum of its own and we felt that there was a gap here,” said museum director Trevor White. Dublin does not have a permanent biography of itself, he added. Mr White led the first guided tours of the museum, which is located at 15 St Stephen’s Green, this morning, stopping often to test patrons on their knowledge of current and former Dublin residents. More than 400 items in the museum were donated by Dubliners over a six month period.
Booker Prize winning author John Banville today offered to donate his brain to the museum, so visitors could marvel at how small it was.
“We’re immensely grateful, it really is a people’s museum,” Mr White said. Museum curator Simon O’Connor said the goal was to create a museum for Dublin that would appeal to both locals and tourists. The museum will also serve as the headquarters for the City of a Thousand Welcomes, a tourism project, as well as for lectures and outreach and education programs.