Chester Beatty
Museum of manuscripts, prints and sacred texts from Asia, the Middle East and Europe, at Dublin Castle.
The Chester Beatty holds the collection assembled by Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, a mining engineer born in New York who became an Irish citizen and left his library to the Irish state on his death in 1968. The collection covers manuscripts, miniature paintings, early printed books, prints and decorative arts from East Asia, South and South-East Asia, the Islamic world and Europe. It first opened in Shrewsbury Road, Ballsbridge, in 1953.
In 2000 the museum moved into the restored eighteenth-century Clock Tower Building in the grounds of Dublin Castle, with new galleries, a reference library and a roof garden overlooking the Dubhlinn Gardens. Highlights include some of the earliest surviving New Testament papyri, Qur'ans from across the Islamic world, Chinese jade books and Japanese woodblock prints. Admission is free and the museum was named European Museum of the Year in 2002.
Highlights
- Early biblical papyri, among the oldest New Testament fragments
- Illuminated Qur'ans and Persian and Mughal miniatures
- Japanese and Chinese scroll paintings and printed books
- Roof garden above the Dubhlinn Gardens at Dublin Castle
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