The Little Museum of Dublin

The Little Museum of Dublin is a people's museum of Dublin, situated at 15 St. Stephens Green, Dublin, Ireland. The museum is located in an 18th-century Georgian town house owned by Dublin City Council.

A People's Museum

As a civic museum for the city of Dublin, the Little Museum chronicles the history of the city in the 20th century. It provides visitors with an intimate and informative glimpse into life in Dublin during that time period. The Little Museum, the “brainchild” of director Trevor White and curator Simon O’Connor, was formed in April 2011 and officially opened its doors to the public in October of the same year. A registered charity, the museum is governed by a board that includes representatives of Dublin City Council and Fáilte Ireland, the national tourism development authority.

The museum has a collection of over 5,000 artifacts that have been donated or loaned directly from the people of Dublin. It has three floors of exhibition space in the Georgian town home, one floor for office space, and an acclaimed Irish café, Hatch & Sons Irish Kitchen, in the basement. Areas of interest within the museum exhibitions include the 1916 Rising, U.S. President John F. Kennedy's visit to Dublin, and many other landmark events in Irish political and social history. The museum also recently opened a new exhibit that focuses exclusively on the success of the rock band U2.

The museum also offers “I Love Dublin” classes for school children ages 6–17, and a tourist greeter program, City of a Thousand Welcomes. The program is a "civic initiative" that connects first time visitors to Dublin with a local 'ambassador' who welcomes them by taking them out for a cup of tea or a pint. During the outing the ambassadors tell their guests about the city and introduce them to Ireland's "outstanding hospitality." The program has been very successful so far; the Sydney Morning Herald describes it as “the best free thing to do in Europe”.

The museum received a new wave of publicity when it purchased an archive of work by artist and poet Christy Brown. As of March 19, 2014 the Little Museum and the National Library of Ireland were the proud joint owners of a collection that includes private letters and previously unseen sketches, paintings, and poems. The collection was sold by Bonhams in London for nearly 45,000 euro.

Patrons of the Little Museum include Dublin City Council, Dublin Regional Authority, Fáilte Ireland, the Merrion Hotel and Porterhouse Bars.

Awards and acclaim

In 2012, the Little Museum of Dublin was nominated for the European Museum of the Year Award.

In May 2013, the Irish Times described the Little Museum as “the best museum experience in Dublin”. In 2014, TripAdvisor awarded the Little Museum with a Certificate of Excellence for the third year in a row. They rank the Little Museum as the #10 attraction to see in Dublin, making it the second most popular museum in Dublin. In February 2014 the museum won the David Manley Award for Emerging Entrepreneurs in the Arts category.

Over 25,000 people visited the Little Museum in the first full year of operation. In 2013, the figure was 51,500, an increase of 114%.

External links

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Tero Angeria
9 July 2017
Great 30 min guided tour through time. Nice stories of people and events. Simple setting but well worth the 8€ they ask for entry.
Kim Pham
16 November 2014
Buy your tickets online. This cute little museum is packed full of interesting items & stories, and will only take you ~30min to get through!
Sissi Filippidou ✩
7 October 2017
Excellent!!!! Loved it, make sure you get the tour with Patrick, great energy and sense of humor.
Anissa
17 July 2017
Learn all about Irish history decade by decade! I enjoyed all the detail in the exhibition and highly recommend!
Nicola T
18 March 2013
Take a guided tour! I didn't and I was quite confused by what I was looking at - there's so much stuff and little context. The owner was around and seemed very passionate so I'm sure it's a good tour.
Ale Palomares Barrios
29 September 2017
El museo me encantó, sobre todo el primer piso que habla sobre la historia de los pubs. Es un lugar para coleccionistas. El tour guiado está un poco chafa.
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Alex Kisel, Nadya Popova and 15,588 more people have been here
Map
16 St Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, D02 KF34, Ireland Get directions
Mon-Wed-Fri-Sun 9:30 AM–5:00 PM
Thu 9:30 AM–8:00 PM

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