Next time you visit that fine institution that never succumbed to the vagaries of fashion: the Natural History Museum on Dublin’s Merrion Square – and please do so very soon – take a look at the display cabinets that contain the marine exhibits. Loiter around these glass cabinets and read the old labels of Victorian typescript on phials and bottles containing the pickled remains of sea creatures. You will notice that many of them are dated from the 1880’s. Consider now those learned and wealthy gentlemen of leisure whose scientific curiosity and doubtless, sense of adventure, led them out onto the rugged, grey seas around Ireland to find curiosities and suitable specimens to fill the Museum’s display cabinets.

produced and presented by Bernie Dwan