Overview
The Ulster Museum holds the only dinosaur bones ever found in Ireland: two fragments – a Scelidosaurus thigh bone and a theropod shin – picked up on the shore at Islandmagee and identified in 2020. They are small and easy to walk straight past, but there is nothing else like them on the island. That habit of quietly holding the singular thing runs through the whole place, which sits inside Belfast Botanic Gardens and covers art, archaeology, natural science and the recent history of the North. Entry is free and you don’t normally need to book. The one thing to plan around: it’s closed on Mondays outside bank holidays.
If your time is short, make for the natural-science floor and the Armada gold. Those two pull ahead of everything else.
History & architecture
The museum grew out of the Belfast Natural History Society, founded in 1821, and moved to its Botanic Gardens home in 1929, into a neo-classical building by James Cumming Wynne. Its most divisive feature came later: a raw concrete extension by Francis Pym, completed in 1972, one of the more committed pieces of Brutalism in the city and the reason the building looks the way it does from the front. The museum was recognised as a national institution under the Museum Act (Northern Ireland) 1961. A £17 million refurbishment ran from 2006 to 2009, reworking the galleries and the visitor route and adding the Wynne & Pym café.
What to see
Natural sciences
This is the floor families gravitate to. The gallery displays a six-metre Edmontosaurus skeleton and a life-size Triceratops cast – mounted specimens rather than Irish finds – alongside a polar bear, a giant squid model and a slice of meteorite. Nearby is the museum’s best-known object, the Egyptian mummy Takabuti, unwrapped in Belfast in 1835 and the subject of continuing research into how she lived and died. The Islandmagee dinosaur bones, Ireland’s only genuine dinosaur fossils, are held here too.
Archaeology & history
The archaeology galleries run from the Neolithic to the medieval. Look for the Malone Hoard of 19 polished stone axe heads and the Bronze Age gold of the Downpatrick Hoard. The standout is the treasure from the Girona, a Spanish Armada galleass that wrecked off the Antrim coast near the Giant’s Causeway in 1588 – gold chains, jewellery and a salamander pendant, raised from the seabed in the 1960s. The ongoing Troubles and Beyond gallery tackles the North’s recent past, from 1968 to the present, using everyday objects rather than headlines.
Art, fashion & textiles
The art collection takes in Francis Bacon, Jean Dubuffet and a linen wall hanging by Henri Matisse. The fashion and textile holdings are a story in themselves: most of the original collection was lost in the 1976 Malone House fire, and what’s on show has been rebuilt since, from 18th-century Spitalfields silk to pieces by Alexander McQueen and JW Anderson. One curiosity is a velvet suit worn by the Irish Black Rod in 1751.
For children
Three hands-on Discovery Centres – Discover Art, Discover History and Discover Nature – let children try on costumes, build a creature at the ‘Design-my-saurus’ station and make art to take home. They’re free and open during museum hours.
Exhibitions & events
- Ashes to Fashion – extended until 3 January 2027, marking 50 years since the fire that gutted the costume collection, with the rebuilt collection on show.
- Elisabeth Frink: Sculpture, Drawing, Print – until 7 March 2027.
- Museum Late: Ceol & Craic – an adults-only after-hours evening on Thursday 20 August 2026, with music and a bar.
- European Heritage Open Days (mid-September) – a free talk and tour on the architectural history of the Brutalist extension, on 13–14 September.
Programmes change, so check the museum’s site for current shows and times before you travel.
Practical information
Opening hours & admission
- Tuesday to Sunday: 10:00–17:00
- Monday: closed (except bank holidays)
- Admission is free for everyone, with no booking needed most of the year. The cloakroom carries a £1 non-refundable charge.
Accessibility
Step-free entrances, lifts to every floor and accessible toilets throughout. Assistance dogs are welcome on a lead; other dogs are not. A full access guide is on AccessAble.
Getting there
The museum is a short walk from Botanic station on the NI Railways network, and Belfast bus routes run along the nearby main roads into the Queen’s Quarter. There’s no museum car park – you’re relying on on-street pay-and-display in the surrounding streets. Blue-badge holders have a small number of accessible spaces beside the building and on the Stranmillis Road side. Address: Botanic Gardens, Belfast, BT9 5AB.
Nearby
- Belfast Botanic Gardens – the Victorian gardens and Palm House the museum sits within; the obvious post-visit stroll.
- Albert Memorial Clock – the leaning clock tower in the city centre, a bus or walk away.
- Belfast Castle – on the slopes of Cave Hill, for views back over the city.
Go on a weekday morning if you can – the natural-science galleries and Discovery Centres fill up with school groups later on, and the whole place is free either way.