Irish skulls snatched from graveyard lastly returned to Inishbofin island
Thirteen human skulls stolen from an Irish island greater than 130 years in the past have been returned and have been at present reinterred on the website from which they have been taken.
The 400-year-old skulls have been taken on this present day in 1890 from the Co Galway island of Inishbofin, off Ireland’s west coast, by two teachers and stored at Trinity College Dublin (TCD) for greater than a century.
After a marketing campaign by islanders, TCD earlier this 12 months apologised for the theft and agreed to return the stays.
Today a funeral service was held on the island, earlier than the skulls have been introduced again to the ruined St Colman’s monastery, from the place they’d been stolen 133 years in the past to the day.
One of the skulls snatched from Inishbofin
Inishbofin resident Marie Coyne, who led the marketing campaign for the skulls’ return, mentioned: “It’s the complete cease on the finish of a sentence. This journey has gone on so lengthy, that is why we have all been ready and hoping and all them feelings.
“And now it’s just stopped. We can relax. It’s taken place.”
How the skulls have been snatched
The story of the stolen skulls had light into historical past, earlier than a brand new marketing campaign by islanders pressured their return.
In 1890, the skulls have been snatched from the graveyard connected to the medieval St Colman’s by Trinity tutorial Professor Alfred C Haddon – a British anthropologist – and his researcher colleague Andrew F Dixon.
It was a time of craniometry, involving the measurement of islanders’ skulls, and Haddon later admitted the theft in his diary.
“When the coast was clear”, he wrote, “we put our spoils in the sack.” The pair smuggled the 13 skulls off Inishbofin by telling sailors their sack contained poitin, an Irish distilled spirit.
The skulls have been positioned in a bespoke coffin
The skulls have been taken to Ireland’s oldest and most prestigious college, Trinity College Dublin. There they languished, largely behind closed doorways on the previous anatomy museum, for greater than a century.
In February this 12 months, TCD introduced {that a} working group had beneficial the return of the skulls to the board.
Trinity’s provost Dr Linda Doyle mentioned: “I am sorry for the upset that was caused by our retaining of these remains and I thank the Inishbofin community for their advocacy and engagement with us on this issue.”
Alfred Haddon’s great-granddaughter, Clare Rishbeth, was current at at present’s ceremony.
Ms Rishbeth, who travelled to Inishbofin from her house in Sheffield, advised the congregation at St Colman’s church: “On behalf of the Haddon and Rishbeth families, I want to say sorry to the islanders for this act.
“I’m actually glad that we will proper this improper.”
How the skulls returned house
Last Wednesday, islanders travelled to Dublin to start out the skulls’ return journey. The stays have been positioned right into a bespoke coffin with separate compartments.
Trinity College’s chapel held a service earlier than the skulls have been positioned right into a hearse, and pushed throughout the nation to Co Galway.
The skulls have been ferried out to Inishbofin yesterday forward of at present’s ceremony and reinterment.
Trinity College, created in 1592 by Queen Elizabeth’s royal constitution, and an essential vacationer attraction in Dublin, is not at all the one college or museum grappling with legacy points.
The skulls have been positioned right into a bespoke coffin
University College Cork introduced in September 2022 that it’s to repatriate historical mummified human stays to Egypt. Museums in Scotland and Northern Ireland have returned human stays and different sacred objects to Hawaii.
The University of Cambridge is planning to return greater than 100 Benin bronzes stolen from Nigeria, whereas the British Museum is below continued strain from Greece handy again the well-known Elgin marbles.
“Where does this stop? Do we empty the museums?,” asks scholar and curator Dr Ciaran Walsh.
“I suppose the simple answer is that anything stolen, anything human, has to go back. Stones in the British Museum, the Elgin marbles…they have to go back.
“If stuff is stolen, if stuff is essential when it comes to the ancestry of communities wherever they’re, whether or not it is Inishbofin or Papua New Guinea, the stuff has to return.
“This story is not a local story about a small island on the west coast of Ireland, it’s an international, global process that needs to be hurried up.”