The library at the National Museum of Ireland supports research and work at the museum by enabling access to print and digital resources for museum staff and visiting researchers.
The library is available to external researchers by appointment only. To make a research appointment, please contact the library in advance at library@museum.ie.
The library is part of the Registration Department with holdings across all the museum’s sites. The main library is located at the museum’s Collections Resource Centre, with satellite collections at each of the museum’s sites.
Library Collections
The library collections consist of over 80,000 books, journals, pamphlets and offprints with the collection continuing to grow through purchase, donation and exchange.
The library collections are built around the work of the curatorial divisions of Archaeology, Country Life, Decorative Arts & History and Natural History, alongside the work of the museum’s other departments such as Conservation, Education, Registration and Marketing.
The library also holds several hundred volumes of rare books, and an extensive collection of Irish auction catalogues, exhibition catalogues and annual reports of other museums and cultural institutions.
Library Catalogue
Approximately half of the library collections have been catalogued and is represented on the library catalogue (available to researchers on-site), with a selection being added to publicly accessible catalogues Worldcat, the English Short Title Catalogue and the Universal Short Title Catalogue.
Contact the Library
Email: library@musuem.ie
Telephone: +353 (0)1 6486487
The library actively encourages research with use of its collections and will support access wherever possible. If you have a research enquiry, please contact library@museum.ie. Please note that we ask that you make contact prior to seeking funding for projects dependent on accessing the collections, to ensure we will have the capacity to meet your needs.
The library also gladly accepts donations of relevant material in line with the museum's Library Collection Development Policy.
Named Collections
The library has received significant donations from noteworthy individuals’ personal libraries.
Arthur Kingsley Porter Bequest
A collection of over 1,000 monographs and 500 pamphlets from the library of the Harvard architectural historian, Arthur Kingsley Porter (1883-1933), were donated to the National Museum of Ireland by his wife Lucy Wallace Porter (1876-1962). The emphasis within this collection is on medieval European architecture and to a lesser extent Irish archaeology.
This collection is held at the National Museum of Ireland – Collections Research Centre and at the National Museum of Ireland at Kildare Street.
George Eogan Library
The family of the renowned archaeologist George Eogan (1930-2021) donated a collection of over 2,000 of his books and journals to the National Museum of Ireland in 2020. The impressive working library reflects Professor Eogan’s academic specialisms in the Neolithic and Bronze Age eras in Ireland and across Europe.
The George Eogan Library is held at the National Museum of Ireland – Collections Research Centre.