Regarded as "Galway's Hidden Museum", it is located in the university's Main Quad and cane be entered through a staircase in that structure's south-east corner.

During the tenure of Professor Henry Cronshaw, the museum was broken up, with only the geological collections remaining in the present location.

[4] The museum specimens were conserved again by FAS workers in the 1990s, which included cataloguing the collections into a computer database.

[4] The museum contains specimens of rocks, minerals and fossils, which primarily serve as an educational resource for the students and staff of the University of Galway, but also primary and secondary school children.

The palaeontological collections include a plesiosaur from Lyme Regis, a German ichthyosaur, and Kiltorcan Devonian flora from County Kilkenny.