This is another subject I’m revisiting but given this week’s report by the Comptroller and Auditor General it’s about time.  Basically the story is that the National Museum is being grossly mismanaged and it’s a wonder any of the items they’ve been storing have made it into the 21st Century.

According to a report published a couple of days ago there needs to be a radical over haul of how the museum stores and catalogues it’s collections.  Out of 17 storage facilities 10 were found to be substandard to the point of putting the artifacts at a high level of risk…we are talking damp, overcrowding and leaks here by the way.

There is no policy for managing collections, only 30% of the almost 4 million items aren’t even catalogued on computer.  They keep stuff with no historical value and out of 905,000 items suitable for display, 875,000 are in storage (that’s 905,000 objects suitable for display out of 4 million). And because 85% of the budget goes on display it looks like it’s going to stay like that for the foreseeable future.

Most worrying of all, 20% of a random selection of items couldn’t be found at all.  The Government have been trying to give them money to build a centralised storage unit to get everything organised but the Museum staff themselves are arguing the toss.  They want a load of smaller facilities.

I’ve had a bee in my bonnet about the National Museum for years.  When you consider what a rich cultural and archeological history Ireland has the Museum’s policy of bunging a load of items in a case with no more information than an often cryptic description and the date and location of where they were found has always driven me up the wall.

There has always been little or no attempt to explain items use or origin or explain any significance they might have.  Exhibitions are usually static for years and temporary exhibitions are uninspiring to say the least.

The Museum of Archeology and History of Kildare Street will describe a collection of interesting looking beads and gold jewellery with a small card that says “Assorted stones, 4th Century, Co Meath”  or words to that effect.

The recent Bog Bodies exhibition was a marked improvement but they’ve a hell of a long way to go before they’ll be close to the independent Chester Beatty Library.

The Museum of Decorative Arts in Collins Barracks when it opened was touted as Ireland’s answer to the V & A.  Some chance!  In the launch publicity almost ten years ago they made much of the Curator’s Choice which was initially supposed to be a display object hand picked by the curators of the various sections.  It was supposed to change several times a year.

The Museum has been open for around a decade now and the Curator’s Choice exhibit is now described as permanent.  Once again, not a patch on the Chester Beatty which regularly changes it’s displays of oriental artifacts and texts donated to the state by American collector Arthur Chester Beatty.

I can never understand why home grown items in the National Museum are treated with such a lack of imagination that borders on contempt.  This weeks report is the third in twenty years that’s pointed out the shortcomings of what should be a world class institution.

There’s a board on the wall in Collins Barracks that charts the history of the National Museum in Ireland.  During British rule it was set up as the local Branch of the Museum of Decorative Arts (the V&A).  As soon as an Irish Government took over though the rot started to set in.  They’ve never really shown a particular interest in education after all.

There seems to be a prevailing attitude in the Museum here that the only people looking at the items would either be academics who don’t need to be told or school children who’ll hear all they need to know from their teacher.  If you don’t know anything about Ireland you’re not going to come out of a visit to the Museum much wiser.

The Kildare Street site has it’s massive display of both early and later Christian artifacts with row after row of cloak pins and croziers but if you want to see a Sile na Gig you’re out of luck. 

Despite the fact the Ireland is the world leader for these rather obscene little carvings (apparently Gig is an Anglicisation of the Irish word ghee which still crops up as a term for female genitalia) there are only two on display.

The rest of the collection are hidden away in the basement and you need a legitimate reason to see them.  And if no legitimate reason is forthcoming you’re not going to learn anything about the aggressively malevolent crones.  Despite typical catholic prudery surely visitors to the country deserve a little more explanation that “Sile na Gig, Co Tipperary 16th Century”. 

If you’ve never seen one before and haven’t heard the various theories about why they exist (pagan goddess, misogynist gargoyle or rather disturbing fertility symbol) they can come as a bit of a shock.

Maybe this report will actually get a change started (though I’ll not be holding my breath).  This is yet another example of Ireland’s failure to get things done without getting swamped with inefficiencies and bureaucracy – though you’d think given our love of middle management they’d at least have had the catalogue sorted.

Maybe one day we can look to a world class exhibition on the history and cultural significance of the Sile na Gig but first of all they’re going to have to find all the missing stuff (maybe Ebay’s a good place to start…)

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