The National Gallery of Ireland is one of the country’s most popular visitor attractions. It houses the nation’s collection of European and Irish art from about 1300 to the present day, and an extensive library and archive.
Entry to the permanent collection, and many temporary exhibitions, is free for all. Open seven days a week, the Gallery is conveniently located in Dublin City centre, a short stroll from Trinity College and Merrion Square.
Free guided tours are available at weekends. Family packs and drawing and creative writing kits are available to borrow for free. Facilities include a shop, café, and wheelchair access to all levels.
Some temporary exhibitions need to be booked in advance and have an admission charge, but there are discounts and special offers available.
Take a look at the Gallery website in advance of your visit for full details.
- Turning Heads: Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer
Family funTurning Heads: Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer This exhibition explores the human face, and some of art history's most revered masters' obsession with it. Witness how artists including Rubens, Rembrandt and Vermeer toyed with emotion and expression through head studies called 'tronies.'
- Walter Frederick Osborne. The Guinness Portrait
Family funWalter Frederick Osborne. The Guinness Portrait This in-focus display will showcase Osborne’s outstanding 'Mary Guinness with her Daughter Margaret', presenting it alongside associated items, providing a fascinating insight into the artist’s planning for a major commission.
- An Túr Gloine: Artists and the Collective
Family funAn Túr Gloine: Artists and the Collective An Túr Gloine was a pioneering stained glass studio, founded in 1903 by portrait painter Sarah Purser, with the help of Irish cultural activist Edward Martyn and English stained glass artist Alfred E. Child.
- Silent City
Family funSilent City ‘Silent City’ will explore depictions of the deserted urban landscape across the island of Ireland, comprising photography, painting, print and drawing dating from the 20th and 21st centuries.
- Vermeer Visits
Family funVermeer Visits Vermeer's 'Mistress and Maid' travels from the Frick in New York to be displayed beside the National Gallery of Ireland’s Vermeer, 'Woman Writing a Letter with her Maid' - an exceptional opportunity to witness the Old Master's two works side by side.
- Women Impressionists
Family funWomen Impressionists Marking the 150th anniversary of the first Impressionist exhibition, held in Paris in 1874, this exhibition focuses on four women artists associated with Impressionism – Berthe Morisot, Eva Gonzalès, Marie Bracquemond, and Mary Cassatt.
Call into Sweny's Pharmacy in Lincoln Place immortalised in James Joyce’s Ulysses, still selling the famous lemon soap as bought by Leopold Bloom in chapter five of Ulysses.
