National Science Museum at Maynooth, Science museum in Maynooth, Ireland.

The National Science Museum at Maynooth houses Ireland's largest collection of scientific instruments, including historic coils, magnets, and telegraph devices. The display also features religious and ecclesiastical pieces that the building has held since its establishment.

The museum was founded in 1934 as the Museum of Ecclesiology within St Patrick's College, with Dr William Moran, Professor of Dogmatic Theology, as its first curator. Moran oversaw the transfer of much of Nicholas Callan's apparatus into the museum, a process completed by his successor, Rev. Dr Michael Casey. After Moran resigned in 1942, Rev. Dr Patrick J McLaughlin, Professor of Experimental Physics and later Vice-President of the College, became curator.

The museum connects two distinct collection areas: scientific equipment linked to local research traditions and religious objects spanning three centuries of Irish heritage. Visitors can see how both fields are displayed side by side.

The museum occupies part of the joint campus shared by St Patrick's College and Maynooth University. From June to September 2025 it opens Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 12:00–14:00 and 15:00–17:00. Tours can be requested from the curator.

The 600,000-volt figure belongs to Nicholas Callan's giant induction coil of 1845, not to his first coil of 1836. Over twenty miles of wire in that coil were hand-insulated with beeswax, and Callan gauged the current by how high seminarians jumped while holding hands in the circuit.