St Colmans’s Monastery and burial ground, Inishbofin. Photo Marie Coyne.
Inishbofin community representatives and repatriation campaigners met with Eoin O’Sullivan and Ciarán O’Neill of TCD last night (28 March 2023), and agreed in outline arrangements for the return and burial of ancestral remains held in the Haddon Dixon Collection; in accordance with island traditions and community archaeology guidelines.
The remains will be handed over to the community at a ceremony in TCD and taken by an undertaker to Galway before being transferred by boat to the island, where they will be buried on Sunday 16 July 2023, one hundred and thirty three years to the day after they were taken.
It seems that this will serve as a model for the return and burial of the remains taken from St Finian’s Bay and Oileán Árann.
It’s been a long and, at times, difficult process, but the motto of the cooperative movement in Ireland is ní neart go cur le chéile (with unity comes strength) and we thank all of our supporters. This would not have happened without them.
We also thank Andrew O’Connell of the Provost’s Office in TCD. His intervention was a turning point in our negotiations with TCD. We especially thank Eoin O’Sullivan and Ciarán O’Neill, who got the deal across the line. Also, thanks to Mobeen Hussain and Patrick Walsh of the colonial legacies project TCD.
Marie Coyne and Ciarán Walsh
on behalf of the
The Haddon Dixon Repatriation Project
Marie Coyne, Inishbofin Heritage Museum.
Dr Pegi Vail, NYU, anthropologist, filmmaker, and community representative Inishbofin.
Cathy Galvin, poet and journalist.
Deirdre Casey, Comhlacht Forbartha an Gleanna (St Finian’s / the Glen).
Niamh Cotter, anthropologist, geographer, and community representative, Inis Mór, Árann.
René Gapert, independent forensic anthropologist.
Dr Fiona Murphy, Anthropologist.
Máirtín Ó Conceanainn, community representative, Inis Mór, Árann.
Pádraig Ó Direáin, community representative, Inis Mór, Árann.
Pat O’Leary, Comhlacht Forbartha an Gleanna (St Finian’s / the Glen).
Ciarán Walsh, curator and anthropologist.
Inishbofin Community and Friends
Inishbofin Development Company
Tuuli Rantala, Community development Co-Ordinator
Tommy Burke
Ryan Lash
Pauline King
Aoife King
Every person who attended the public meeting on Inishbofin on 4 November 2022, those who signed the petition on Inishbofin and online, and made submissions to TCD on our behalf.
Eamon Ó Cuiv TD
Deaglán O’Mocháin, Dearcán Media.
Ana Ivasiuc, Anthropological Journal of European Cultures.
All the journalists who covered the story in the media.
Teampall Cholmain 2023 – 1890
A composite photograph of St Colman’s Monastery, showing Marie Coyne’s 2014 recreation (left) of the photograph of A. C. Haddon’s original (right), recording the location of the skulls (bottom right corner) he and Dixon stole under cover of darkness on 16 July 1890. Haddon also recorded the scene in an identical sketch in his journal, and that sketch illustrates a vivid account of the theft.
