History of the museum from 1852 to the late 1990's from the NUI Galway website

The museum was established in 1852. The bulk of the rock, mineral and fossil collections were assembled by the first professor of Geology in Galway, William King D.Sc. who arrived in 1849. King settled in Galway till his death,  thirty-seven years later. Material collected in England and on the continent prior to King's arrival was later supplemented by exchanges and gifts together with purchases from dealers. Kingís original hand-written catalogues are still extant. 

With the appointment of Richard J. Anderson M.D. to the Chair of Natural History, Geology and Mineralogy in 1883 the geology and natural history collections were amalgamated to form the Natural History Museum. The collections were housed in five rooms - three for zoological specimens and two for fossils, minerals and rocks. 

Following Anderson's death in 1914 the chairs of Natural History and Geology and Mineralogy were partitioned. Professor Henry Cronshaw's short tenure (1915-1920) witnessed the disintegration of the five roomed museum in the now University College Galway. The bulk of the geological collections however, remained intact in their present location. Professor James Mitchell was appointed to the Chair of Geology and Mineralogy in 1921 and held this together with the post of College Secretary and Registrar from 1934 until his retirement in 1966. During his tenure the main gallery and collections of the surviving Geology Museum remained virtually intact. 

The museum was formally designated the James Mitchell Museum in 1977 in recognition of the considerable contributions made by him to the development of the College. However by the mid-eighties the gallery, displays and collections were in urgent need of attention. While the main gallery itself together with its Victorian oak cabinets was a magnificent example of a 'Museum of a Museum' the collections and displays had suffered acute neglect. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  One of the display cabinets in the museum                    

Four areas were targeted for immediate action: 1) restoration of the 19th century ambience of the main gallery; 2) curation and conservation of all extant museum material; 3) entry of all available information into a computerised data base, and 4) refurbishment of displays to reflect contemporary themes in Earth history. 

Fortunately, two Irish Government agencies i.e. An Foras Aiseanna Saothair (FAS) and the National Heritage Council provided the necessary funding and human resources to help achieve significant progress in these areas over the last seven years. For example, most of the museums holdings, have been catalogued and this data base forms the basis for a new computerised catalogue and an efficient access and loan system. Cabinets have been relined and properly lit to enhance the new displays.

Museum in late 2009 

Despite the large effort undertaken in the 1990's the museum had once again fallen into disarray. The computerised database was non-existent due to obsolete technology and lost data. The mineral displays were mislabelled, dirty and poorly organised at best. Many of the minerals in drawer storage had suffered irreparable damage by being left openly accessible to the general public without supervision. Nearly all of the specimens were covered with a thick layer of dust, some had disintegrated, others were broken by mishandling. Many magnificent museum quality specimens were used as teaching samples and thus subjected to barbaric streak and hardness tests. Evidence of this is clearly seen gouged across the display faces of many fine calcite, fluorite and gypsum specimens. The collections were once again in dire need of conservation.

An example of my cleaning and photography work; a brilliant specimen of naturally formed electric-blue chalcanthite from the museum ca,8cm across. 

In early 2010, I decided that it was time to do something about the dreadful state of my nearest mineralogy museum. I decided to use my experience gained from my personal mineral collecting and offered to clean, photograph and create an online catalogue of the mineral collections of the college. The staff in the Earth and Ocean Science department were well aware of the museum’s condition but powerless to do anything due to lack of both time and resources, and so, my offer was gratefully accepted.                                             

To date, over 200 of the finest, delicate and most valuable specimens in the collection have been cleaned, photographed and placed into locked display cabinets safely away from any potential harm. While the project is still currently on-going, it is hoped that works will be completed before the beginning of the next academic year with the entire collection digitally viewable on www.mindat.org– the world’s premier resource for mineralogy and mineral collecting.

Completed specimens can be viewed here