The “Old” Anatomy Museum in TCD was used as a television studio during Science Week in November 2018. Here are some photos.
The filming represents a remarkable development in the process of putting the anatomical and anthropological collections into the public domain. Two years ago there was an attempt to have the skeleton of Cornelius Magrath (shown below) destroyed.
The campaign fizzled out when it was shown that the legend surrounding the acquisition of Magrath’s was just that, a legend. Brendan Holland and Chris Nikkel’s documentary on The Giant Gene was filmed in the museum earlier in April 2018 and demonstrated the logic of opening collections like this to the public.
In the opening scene of Act 3 of John Millington Synge’s play The Playboy of the Western World Jimmy asks Philly if he ‘ever heard tell of the skulls they have in Dublin, ranged out like blue jugs in a cabin of Connacht?’ Philly replies that a lad had described the white skulls and black skulls and yellow skulls on show. (Synge 1968: 147-8). Synge was referring to the Wilde skulls shown above.
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