“Skellig provided J. J. Abrams with the perfect location for the birthplace of the Jedi. The challenge of filming Star Wars on a steep rock twelve kilometres out in the Atlantic has added enormously to the mystique of a place with a long tradition of pilgrims scaling its twin peaks. 150 years before Abrams landed on Skellig, Edwin Wyndham-Quin noticed a monastic complex on the first ordnance survey map of the rock and included it in his study of pagan forts, Christian hermitages and mediaeval churches. William Mercer photographed each site between 1866 and 1869 and the discovery in April 2023 of his print of “St Michael’s Church and Cell” provides an opportunity to revisit an adventure in photography that surpasses Abrams’ determination to film on the rock.“
I will present a masterclass at the 2023 Atlantic Anthropological / Antraipeolaíochta Atlantach workshopat the Sacred Heart Dingle Campus in Daingean Uí Chúis, Co. Kerry. Convened by Dr. James Cuffe (University College Cork) and Dr. Fiona Murphy (Dublin City University), the workshop offers a multi-modal exploration of anthropology in its broadest sense, an objective that resonates profoundly with historical and contemporary themes in my research, which Berghahn Books will publish in September 2023.
To explain: In 1895 Haddon called for the study. of anthropology in its widest sense, challenging restrictions placed on the investigation under the name of anthropology of a variety of social, philosophical and political topics, a doctrine enforced by anatomists who advocated a politically conservative construction of evolutionist biology. In 2020, I completed my doctoral research on Haddon’s involvement in the skull measuring business in Ireland, when a similar debate was happening in anthropology and sociology. That focussed my attention on what, practically speaking, becoming an anthropologist means nowadays, especially as I come from a visual arts background, and becoming an anthropologist was somehow accidental. As contradictory as it sounds, that is the theme of my masterclass.
Berghahn Books has just provided me with a typeset copy of my book on Haddon, which is due out in September as the fifth volume in the series on Anthropology’s Ancestors edited by Aleksandar Bošković. Details are available on the Berghahn website, and I discuss the choice of title and other aspects of this project in my Ballymaclinton blog.
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.
Marie Coyne, 2022, St Colman’s Monastery and burial ground.
It is expected that the board of TCD will decide today (22 February 2023) to return to Inishbofin the ancestral remains Haddon and Dixon stole in 1890.
We were unable to achieve the return of the Árann and St Finian Bay remains as part of this deal, but there is now a procedure in place in TCD to submit claims in respect of these remains:
It should also be stressed that this document focuses specifically on the Inishbofin case though it has potential relevance for future requests from other communities of origin in Ireland seeking the return and reburial of other human remains in the Haddon/Dixon collection including those collected from Finian’s Bay, Co. Kerry and the Aran Islands as well as other human remains’ collections at TCD.
It’s been a long campaign (link to AJEC blog) that is now drawing to a close, and, on behalf of everyone involved, I thank you for all your support and work.
