Maritime Museum Dun Laoghaire in Dun Laoghaire, Dun Laoghaire–Rathdown, Ireland | Museum

Welcome to the Maritime Museum Dun Laoghaire, Ireland. The Maritime Institute of Ireland was founded in 1941 at one of the most critical moments in this country’s history. Some of the founders and earliest supporters had been trying to impress on the general public and on government for at least the previous five years, in particular its real founder and longest serving President, Colonel Anthony Lawlor, that if, as seemed more and more inevitable, a catastrophic European war were to break out, Ireland would very quickly be in crisis. While we had very good reason to declare ourselves neutral, nobody in the highest position of critical responsibility had taken the trouble to ensure how a small neutral island which depended on the importation of vital food and other supplies was going to survive when the ships, mainly owned by non-nationals that carried our vital imports and valuable exports were no longer avail-able. Yet, by 1942, this was precisely what had happened and starvation and economic collapse were all too visible on the horizon to even the dumbest politicians.

The Institute warmly welcomes, as a result of their years of campaigning, the establishment of the Marine Institute, Dun Laoghaire and its effective adjunct, the Irish Maritime Development Office

Through contacts made with the Institute’s Maritime Museum Dun Laoghaire, many of the world’s great maritime Museums, such as the Musie de la Marine in Paris and the British National Maritime Museum Dun Laoghaire, have developed permanent contact with the Institute, which in the past 30 years has been represented in large conferences on incidents or trends in international maritime history.