What We Found There

The National Museum of Ireland / Ard-Mhúsaem na hÉireann is a repository of memory - but also a living place that enriches and challenges the present, that preserves for the future a witness to who we have been. We invited more than forty poets, writing in both English and Irish, to visit any of the Museum's four collections - Archaeology in Kildare Street, Natural History in Merrion Street, Decorative Arts & History in Collins' Barracks, Dublin, and Country Life in Turlough Park, Co. Mayo - and to write a poem prompted by this visit. The resulting poems in this anthology are inspired by, in conversation with, the Museum itself and those artefacts and objects from its collections that have engaged the imagination of the poets as they have engaged the imaginations of countless visitors through the years.