Staff had to cope with leaks from the roof of ‘The Dead Zoo’ during the pandemic

After the flood.

National Museum of Ireland – Natural History, Merrion Street, Dublin 2.

Paolo Viscardi, Curator of Zoology, writes:

At the Dead Zoo in Dublin the pandemic has thrown up different challenges. With a leaking roof threatening the national collections, a project to safeguard them by undertaking a roof refurbishment was considered a priority and categorised as essential work.

The first stage of this project was to remove two whales suspended from supports within the roofspace, which in turn required a substantial amount of preparation, given the crowded Victorian gallery space

In an ideal world we would have been able to empty the building of specimens and cases, but as we’re all well aware, the world is seldom ideal.

Instead, large taxidermy and skeletal mounts had to be shunted around to make way for access and scaffolding, while historic cases full of objects and the largest free-standing specimens had to be boxed in to protect against dust and falling debris from the work.

People from Maurice Ward Art Handling and William Tracey & Sons to assist with moving somewhere in the region of 20,000 objects and historic cases from the First Floor and Balcony spaces. All of this was to get the building ready for the first phase of roof work – the installation of a crash deck beneath the glass ceiling, which is due to begin in the next few weeks….[More at link below]

Persevering Through The Pandemic (The Natural Sciences Collections Association Blog)

Pics via Paolo Viscardi