Past exhibitionsThe World of Dinosaurs (1993), one of our first temporary exhibitions, focused on the Jurassic Age and featured fossils, interactive media and a life-size skeleton of a Megalosaurus. Exhibits came on loan from the Ulster Museum in Belfast and the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin.
Masters of Medicine (1994) traced the development of medicine from the earliest times to the present day, and included exhibits on loan from the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, the National Museum of Ireland, the Nobel Foundation, Stockholm.
World War II (1995) was a major exhibition tracing the origins of the War, the rise of the Third Reich, the Holocaust, and the major battle campaigns in Europe, Africa and the Pacific. The exhibition featured a range of military equipment, uniforms, manuscripts, newsreel footage, as well as Allied and Axis forces memorabilia. For this large-scale exhibition we borrowed material from the following institutions: the Imperial War Museum, London; The Australian War Museum, Canberra; US Marine Corps Museum, Quantico, Virginia; Musée De
l’Armée, Les Invalides, Paris; Yad Vashem Museum, Jerusalem; the Irish Military Museum, The Curragh.
From Marconi to the Music of the Stars (1996) celebrated 100 years of broadcasting and telecommunications. It featured audio-visual displays, videophone links, digital video, sound archives, and live radio broadcasts. Exhibits came on loan from the Marconi Foundation in Bologna, RTE, Telecom Eireann, Radio Kerry, and the Irish Amateur Radio Association.
The Exploration of Space (1997) was a highly acclaimed exhibition tracing the origins and development of space flight. It was organised in conjunction with NASA and the European Space Agency, and was officially opened by Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. Exhibition highlights included moon rock, a re-created lunar landscape, original space suits, scale models of space craft and probes, a video wall presentation, and a computer-based virtual reality space flight programme specially produced for the exhibition. Material
came on loan from NASA in Houston, the European Space Agency in Paris, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in San Jose, and the National Museum of Ireland.
Touching the Past (1998 and 1999) was a series of interactive displays and workshops, illustrating daily life in pre-historic Ireland. Visitors were given the opportunity to construct a Mesolithic hut/shelter, to make Bronze Age pottery, prepare skins and hides, using real and replica objects. There was also a recreation of an archaeological excavation, showing how artefacts are recovered.
The Lee Valley - Neolithic to New Millennium (2000) traced the pattern of settlement in the Lee Valley from the Neolithic period to the present day. In the late 1990s archaeologists identified a wealth of previously unknown sites, uncovered as a result of a number of building developments around the Tralee area. These included a passage tomb, a Neolithic house, hill forts, earthworks, ring-barrows, fulachta fiadh, standing stones, cairns and ceremonial enclosures. The exhibition displayed objects found during the course of these excavations as well as material on loan from the National Museum of Ireland.
Antarctica (2002) was one of the most successful exhibitions ever staged in the Museum and won the Best Exhibition of the Year Award at the Museum of the Year Awards. It told the story of Tom Crean, the man from Annascaul who went to Antarctica three times in the early 20th century with both Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton. The impetus for the exhibition came from a collection of material donated to the Museum by Tom Crean’s family and this was used in conjunction with loans from museums and private lenders in Great Britain, Norway and the United States, to tell the story of an extraordinary man whose achievements went unnoticed in his native country for ove seventy years. Material for the exhibition was loaned by the following: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; Fram Museum, Oslo; Royal Geographical Society, London; Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge; Dundee Heritage Trust, Scotland; Swansea Museum, and Cyfarthfa Castle Museum, Merthyr Tydfil, Wales; Oates Museum, Selborne, UK; Dulwich College, London; British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge; Science Museum of Minnesota, USA. The exhibition was so successful that, by popular demand, we included the story of Tom Crean in our permanent gallery and you can read more about him there.
Wilson Watercolours (2005) was an exhibition of paintings by Edward Wilson (1892 – 1912). Scientist, naturalist and artist, Edward Wilson was from Cheltenham in England. In 1900 he joined Captain R.F. Scott’s Discovery expedition to Antarctica as the junior medical officer and zoologist. Another member of that expedition was the Kerryman Tom Crean, on the first of his three trips to the frozen continent. On his return from the Antarctic Wilson and his family came to Kerry on holidays in August 1905, taking a house overlooking Inch Strand, and it was here that he painted a number of landscapes of the area.
These Kerry watercolours were generously donated to the Museum by the Wilson family and formed the basis for the exhibition. Wilson went south to Antarctica with Scott and Crean again in 1910 on the Terra Nova expedition. He never came back: he died there in 1912, along with Scott and three others, on the return journey from their doomed attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole.
Masters of Medicine (1994) traced the development of medicine from the earliest times to the present day, and included exhibits on loan from the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland, the National Museum of Ireland, the Nobel Foundation, Stockholm.
World War II (1995) was a major exhibition tracing the origins of the War, the rise of the Third Reich, the Holocaust, and the major battle campaigns in Europe, Africa and the Pacific. The exhibition featured a range of military equipment, uniforms, manuscripts, newsreel footage, as well as Allied and Axis forces memorabilia. For this large-scale exhibition we borrowed material from the following institutions: the Imperial War Museum, London; The Australian War Museum, Canberra; US Marine Corps Museum, Quantico, Virginia; Musée De
l’Armée, Les Invalides, Paris; Yad Vashem Museum, Jerusalem; the Irish Military Museum, The Curragh.
From Marconi to the Music of the Stars (1996) celebrated 100 years of broadcasting and telecommunications. It featured audio-visual displays, videophone links, digital video, sound archives, and live radio broadcasts. Exhibits came on loan from the Marconi Foundation in Bologna, RTE, Telecom Eireann, Radio Kerry, and the Irish Amateur Radio Association.
The Exploration of Space (1997) was a highly acclaimed exhibition tracing the origins and development of space flight. It was organised in conjunction with NASA and the European Space Agency, and was officially opened by Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon. Exhibition highlights included moon rock, a re-created lunar landscape, original space suits, scale models of space craft and probes, a video wall presentation, and a computer-based virtual reality space flight programme specially produced for the exhibition. Material
came on loan from NASA in Houston, the European Space Agency in Paris, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in San Jose, and the National Museum of Ireland.
Touching the Past (1998 and 1999) was a series of interactive displays and workshops, illustrating daily life in pre-historic Ireland. Visitors were given the opportunity to construct a Mesolithic hut/shelter, to make Bronze Age pottery, prepare skins and hides, using real and replica objects. There was also a recreation of an archaeological excavation, showing how artefacts are recovered.
The Lee Valley - Neolithic to New Millennium (2000) traced the pattern of settlement in the Lee Valley from the Neolithic period to the present day. In the late 1990s archaeologists identified a wealth of previously unknown sites, uncovered as a result of a number of building developments around the Tralee area. These included a passage tomb, a Neolithic house, hill forts, earthworks, ring-barrows, fulachta fiadh, standing stones, cairns and ceremonial enclosures. The exhibition displayed objects found during the course of these excavations as well as material on loan from the National Museum of Ireland.
Antarctica (2002) was one of the most successful exhibitions ever staged in the Museum and won the Best Exhibition of the Year Award at the Museum of the Year Awards. It told the story of Tom Crean, the man from Annascaul who went to Antarctica three times in the early 20th century with both Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton. The impetus for the exhibition came from a collection of material donated to the Museum by Tom Crean’s family and this was used in conjunction with loans from museums and private lenders in Great Britain, Norway and the United States, to tell the story of an extraordinary man whose achievements went unnoticed in his native country for ove seventy years. Material for the exhibition was loaned by the following: National Maritime Museum, Greenwich; Fram Museum, Oslo; Royal Geographical Society, London; Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge; Dundee Heritage Trust, Scotland; Swansea Museum, and Cyfarthfa Castle Museum, Merthyr Tydfil, Wales; Oates Museum, Selborne, UK; Dulwich College, London; British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge; Science Museum of Minnesota, USA. The exhibition was so successful that, by popular demand, we included the story of Tom Crean in our permanent gallery and you can read more about him there.
Wilson Watercolours (2005) was an exhibition of paintings by Edward Wilson (1892 – 1912). Scientist, naturalist and artist, Edward Wilson was from Cheltenham in England. In 1900 he joined Captain R.F. Scott’s Discovery expedition to Antarctica as the junior medical officer and zoologist. Another member of that expedition was the Kerryman Tom Crean, on the first of his three trips to the frozen continent. On his return from the Antarctic Wilson and his family came to Kerry on holidays in August 1905, taking a house overlooking Inch Strand, and it was here that he painted a number of landscapes of the area.
These Kerry watercolours were generously donated to the Museum by the Wilson family and formed the basis for the exhibition. Wilson went south to Antarctica with Scott and Crean again in 1910 on the Terra Nova expedition. He never came back: he died there in 1912, along with Scott and three others, on the return journey from their doomed attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole.
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