Ulster Museum, Belfast

Ulster Museum, Belfast (must see)

The Ulster Museum, located in the Botanic Gardens in Belfast, has around 8,000 square metres of public display space, featuring material from the collections of fine art and applied art, archaeology, ethnography, treasures from the Spanish Armada, local history, numismatics, industrial archaeology, botany, zoology and geology. It is the largest museum in Northern Ireland, and one of the components of National Museums Northern Ireland. The Ulster Museum was closed for nearly three years (2006 to October 2009) while it was under renovation. It re-opened to the public on 22 October 2009, on its 80th anniversary. The renovation work was supported by the National Lottery and the Northern Ireland Executive's Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure.

The Ulster Museum was founded as the Belfast Natural History Society in 1821 and began exhibiting in 1833. It has included an art gallery since 1890. Originally called the Belfast Municipal Museum and Art Gallery, in 1929, it moved to its present location in Stranmillis. The new building was designed by James Cumming Wynne. In 1962, courtesy of the Museum Act (Northern Ireland) 1961, it was renamed as the Ulster Museum and was formally recognised as a national museum. A major extension constructed by McLaughlin & Harvey Ltd to designs by Francis Pym was begun in 1962 and opened in 1964. It is in the Brutalist style, praised by David Evans for the "almost barbaric power of its great cubic projections and cantilevers brooding over the conifers of the botanic gardens like a mastodon".

The Ulster Museum contains important collections of Irish birds, mammals, insects, molluscs, marine invertebrates, flowering plants, algae and lichens, as well as an archive of books and manuscripts relating to Irish natural history. The museum also maintains a natural history website named Habitas. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s it had a permanent exhibition ondinosaurs which has since been scaled back considerably. There is also a collection of rocks, minerals and fossils.
Sight description based on Wikipedia.

Want to visit this sight? Check out these Self-Guided Walking Tours in Belfast. Alternatively, you can download the mobile app "GPSmyCity: Walks in 1K+ Cities" from Apple App Store or Google Play Store. The app turns your mobile device to a personal tour guide and it works offline, so no data plan is needed when traveling abroad.

Download The GPSmyCity App

Ulster Museum on Map

Sight Name: Ulster Museum
Sight Location: Belfast, Ireland (See walking tours in Belfast)
Sight Type: Museum/Gallery

Walking Tours in Belfast, Ireland

Create Your Own Walk in Belfast

Create Your Own Walk in Belfast

Creating your own self-guided walk in Belfast is easy and fun. Choose the city attractions that you want to see and a walk route map will be created just for you. You can even set your hotel as the start point of the walk.
Belfast Introduction Walking Tour

Belfast Introduction Walking Tour

For over a century, the political situation of Belfast, the capital of Northern Ireland, has been the source of strife, first between the Crown-loyal Protestants and Irish Catholics, and more recently between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

Sitting on the banks of the River Lagan where it meets the Irish Sea, the city owes its name to this coastal condition, with "Belfast"...  view more

Tour Duration: 2 Hour(s)
Travel Distance: 3.5 Km or 2.2 Miles
The Troubles and Peace Process Landmarks

The Troubles and Peace Process Landmarks

Decades past the official end of The Troubles in Belfast, the price of peace in Northern Ireland remains high. One of the means with which to secure it, back in 1969, was erecting a wall to physically separate the capital's warring Protestant and Catholic communities. Known since as the Peace Wall, the structure has become a popular tourist attraction for the multiple murals painted thereon...  view more

Tour Duration: 1 Hour(s)
Travel Distance: 2.1 Km or 1.3 Miles
Belfast Victorian Architecture Jewels

Belfast Victorian Architecture Jewels

Described as “modestly scaled, undemonstrative, somewhat solid in aspect, and usually restrained (sometimes even austere) in its use of external decoration”, the urban landscape of Belfast has been influenced by the demands of shipbuilding and linen industry, much as transitioning between culture, arts, commerce, and education. Still, the architectural spectrum of the city is quite broad and...  view more

Tour Duration: 2 Hour(s)
Travel Distance: 2.9 Km or 1.8 Miles