Irelands Treasures Uncovered

Ireland's museums are rich with treasure precious artifacts that connect this land to its ancient past some are iconic others overlooked but each one has a story to tell and a unique place in Irish history in this program we'll explore the Forgotten riches remarkable discoveries and surprising tales behind this islands most precious artifacts and we'll reveal how ancient treasures continue to shed new light on the story of Ireland north and south to tell this story we've asked leading experts to champion the treasures they feel are the most exceptional this rule is unique in medieval Europe there is nothing like this anywhere else treasures integral to Island story they still bear the physical impression of King William's own hands this book is the earliest surviving - were written entirely in the earth language and treasures that astound us they weren't noticed by the robbers because they're extremely flat they're extremely light these are the undiscovered tales and astonishing stories behind Ireland's greatest treasures dr. Gavin Hughes and I have been given full access to the islands two largest museums the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin and here the Ulster museum in Belfast here we come over to the Bronze Age look at this goal that's wonderful so I quite like the battle axes but that's just me using this incredible collection we're about to uncover the stories behind Ireland's best-loved artifacts and we begin with this Island's most celebrated treasure jewellery from medieval Ireland that would shape history in modern Ireland no country in the world is as closely associated with the Celts as Ireland is but that wasn't always the case and there's one iconic treasure that helps to tell the story of how in the 19th century Ireland put the celts at the heart of their national story that treasure is the Terra bridge the brooch is on permanent display at the National Museum of Ireland under the watchful eye of museum director dr. Ron allow flowing the Tara brooch is probably the single greatest treasure in metal rock that survives in Ireland it is effectively the equivalent in metalwork of the Book of Kells it was exceptional in the early 8th century when it was made and remains an exceptional piece today modern jewelers are still confounded by some of the techniques used in its manufacture even the name the Terra brooch has a majestic feel conjuring a bygone Ireland of ancient kings ruling from the islands most famous royal site the Hill of Tara but these are only romantic connections not based on fact the tyra brooch in fact has nothing whatsoever to do with the hill of tara the reputed siege of the high kings of Ireland it was actually found some miles away at the coastal site of Betty's town Karimi soon after it was found in 1850 the brooch was sold to Dublin jeweler George Waterhouse he saw it commercial potential replicas were advertised as the Torah brooch for it's regal status both in Ireland and for a much larger market in England he presented the brooch to Queen Victoria within a couple of weeks of him acquiring it he then marketed the brooch under the title the Royal antique Irish brooch so it was doubly associated both with the high kings of Ireland and with Queen Victoria the tarah brooch had become a fashion symbol and by the turn of the century adverts were in every newspaper even in theatres brochures for plays by WB Yeats but the significance of the Terra bridge was changing as Irish nationalism rose this treasure rose with it becoming a symbol of resistance during the east of rising it was literally a badge for certain rebel groups so here you have this brooch on the cusp of the changeover from the fashionable 19th century wearing of archaeological jewelry the rediscovery of an Irish national costume and moving into the political nationalist arena in the early 20th century the tarah brooch was at the center of a Celtic revival whether as a fashion item endorsed by the Queen then replicated for the mass market or as a symbol of Irish rebellion this brooch has always been linked to a Celtic past used to create a distinct Irish identity I think the idea of Celtic identity is probably much stronger now than it ever has been as proved by the Celtic revival it's almost like a renewal of identity on a perceived past and largely through the prism of the tower approach and it's incredible how important artwork is to that construction of identity of a mind so this is a replica of that it is wonderful brooch I mean it is really amazing it's incredibly ornate it is quite clearly it borrowed from the reputation and then the whole symbolism of Tarun's and I mean you look at the front of it you think that's pretty feel fantastic to be in with but the really interesting thing is you turn it over prettier that's beautiful that's fantastic isn't it and this of course was the side of the bridge which would not be seen but then it was seeing one say the where in you that it was there the well I mean an object of say in a really prized personal possession well this is it and you can quite easily see why whenever it came to light in 1850 why there's a sudden kind of spiraling of jewelers saying right we're going to make things exactly like this by cashing in they are cashing in absolutely these tarah inspired brooches would become a fashion staple in Victorian times but it's still big business in Ireland today modern jewel is capitalized on the Celtic designs that Ireland has become famous for but in actual fact the original Tara braid hundreds of years after the Celts fortunately the Ulster museum has an artifact that is Celtic made in the Iron Age and of course here we have the feel like the real thing this is the band disc and this dates to the 1st century AD this is what I would call proper healthy cart work so what I find interesting is that this is speaking of a connection with the continent of a style of art which is which is there in Ireland and in Britain and across to the continent whereas these breeches are a much more Western phenomenon they're Irish they're Scottish there's inspiration perhaps coming through from the Iron Age but also from from other areas as well and unaided art historians are really nervous about calling this Celtic art is what everybody thinks always Calais ago it's the traditional kind of idea the stereotype of what Celtic art should be this is it and I think it reminds us that all too often we look at jewelry or we look at artwork perhaps is slightly frivolous objects but they have immense political wage the Tara brooch helped to forge Ireland's identity as a Celtic nation but connections back to the Iron Age Celts are still hotly debated there's little evidence of a Celtic invasion of Ireland ancient Irish art combines inspiration from the continent with homegrown ideas the topic of the ancient Celts divides archaeologists to this day but debate is a cornerstone of archaeology as seen again with our next treasure the story behind islands most famous golden treasure cuts right to the heart of how we interpret our ancestors it straddles borders and it pits what we perceive to be modern truth against ancient myth it is the brighter horde made up of seven gold ornaments every artifact on the hoard has been worked by a master craftsman in the iron age dr. Ned Kelly is the former head of antiquities at the National Museum of Ireland he spent decades unravelling its significance he's convinced these objects are of european-wide importance the brighter hoard is truly one of our great national treasures the quality of the artwork on the objects and indeed the technical superiority of the craftsmen who made these objects places them at the very forefront of european metalwork in the Iron Age the hoard was discovered in 1896 in the town land of brighter near lock foil within months the British Museum had purchased the gold for its London collection it was an act unpopular in Dublin the Royal Irish Academy with their advocate in Parliament william redmond led a crusade to bring the hoard back their key weapon was a fiery lawyer named Edward Carlsen the irony here is extraordinary a decade later Edward Carson would battle William and his brother John Redmond over the burning issue of Home Rule it would bring the country to the very brink of Civil War but for now in 1903 they were united in a common cause to bring an Irish treasure back home to decide the Gould's fate the court sought to answer a single question why had these objects been buried over 2,000 years ago Edward Carson argued the Horde had been buried but the owner intended to come back for it he knew that under the laws of treasure trove a lost artifact would be awarded to the state where it was found in this case Ireland the British Museum disagreed they claimed the gold was an offering to the gods the owner had no intention of recovering it so under the law ownership fell not to the state but to whoever found it central to this argument with the stories found in Ireland's Iron Age mythology tales relating to an Irish sea god named Malin on McClair Ned Kelly has studied these myths for years and can link them directly to both the artifacts and the location where they were found in the ancient mythology Nana na ma Claire is a solar deity who was believed to have had a residence underneath Locke foil and melanin would have been one of the attendants of the Sun to protect the solar boat especially as it traveled through the Otherworld at night so this would have been very appropriate to offer to the sea God you the connections are feasible but would a British Court uphold an argument based on ancient Irish folklore or would the judge rely instead on the bare facts that suggested this treasure was lost as it turned out there were no ambiguities in the decision this was the judges verdict I must express my opinion that the court has been occupied for some considerable time in listening to fanciful suggestions more suited to the poem of a Celtic bard than the prose of an English law report the result is that I will make a declaration that the articles in question are treasure trove Redmon's Irish parliamentary party Edward Carson and the Royal Irish Academy had won so the brewer hoard would be the prized possession not of London but of Dublin a city that just twenty years later would be part of a different country ned kelly has joined us to unravel this story further along with a curator here at the Ulster museum dr. Greer Ramsey there are so many ironies about this case me we have read wound aligned with Carson Royal Irish Academy to bring this back to Dublin how significant was it to be returned to Donald I think Carson and Redmond the the Royal Academy and the British Museum all recognized that this was a treasure of European proportions it was a really really important find and Carson courses as a lawyer he would have realized that a legal process to determine who owned these items hadn't been air carried through but also as a Dublin man who grew up just around the corner from the National Museum he would have seen the National Museum as the appropriate place for a great national treasure to be placed and what do you think about the the story behind this by Ned is it representing some sort of Iron Age of Mythology well we have a number of clue and in in the mythology mana normally is believed to have a residence beneath lock foil sucia deity he is a deity and then there's the actual objects that are in the hoard we know man anon has a boat that travels over land and water that of course is the solar boat but he also has a cauldron of plenty and these are both objects which are represented in the hoard and which are associated with solar worship the corner of Plenty being the song itself we find in the Bronze Age we find it in the islands to the idea that objects were deliberately suppose dear dear appease the gods whether it's bringing good luck or warding off evil so when you look at all of the evidence it's definitely pointing you towards these objects being a vote of deposit to this particular deity now both of you seem to be very comfortable discussing this hoard as a votive offering so historically then you would have been arguing for it to have been kept in the British Museum at the time that's the argument yeah that was the Magna necessary thing done and therefore it to go to the British Museum I think people would always have wanted this hoard to stay in Ireland so this means the metal work from this Hall ended up in its right place in Ireland but for the wrong reasons but being in its right place would be short-lived the partition of Ireland in 1922 left the hoard and a wealth of other artifacts separated by a border from where they were found it means here at the Ulster museum we must view a replica can we pick this up yeah this replica I mean either these are antiques in the rain right only yes the whereas feels like it's going to come home you know it will actually come apart if you twist it to choose your hair the hinge mechanism works so presuming this I would have been originally joined so unfortunately as you say it's not the original we have it's a replica after the island was partitioned discussions took place between the authorities in the north and so on what to do with the collection and the outcome of the negotiations was that the northern authorities took a cash settlement really yes and the whole of the national collection stay in Dublin is your predecessors gray s is a hit of course point out that the majority of treasures in the nice Museum the best treasure is not a nice museum were of course from the north in Clayton is like right at home the story of where the brighter hoard ended up is rich with irony and tangled in politics a tale almost as sumptuous as the treasure itself but further back than our modern nations of this island this gold treasure is part of a flowering of art and crafts that accompanied the first metalworking in Europe in the Bronze Age Ireland was a center of gold working in Europe and today's craftsmen still marvel at the skill of those ancient metal workers as a result Ireland's museums are filled with artifacts treasures emblematic of the Bronze Age but they also remind us that this landscape was once rich with our most valuable metal gold it doesn't rust or tarnish treasures Shalin as if they were just crafted but gold is also easily reused and countless artifacts must have met their fate in a melting pot lost forever it is a small miracle when precious objects survived from antiquity our next treasure is not just one artifact but dozens gold rescued from being melted down by an antiquarian before Islands National Museum had even been founded unlike the brighter hoard this treasure would end up in London a vital piece in fact in the British Museum's gold collection but it all began in a small village in County Kilkenny it was here in pill town where Redmond Antony started a small Museum in the 1830s Redmond Anthony was my great-great-great great-grandfather and he lived here in the yen in pill town he in at the time was a hotel and it had a museum upstairs here in the barrel just above me Antony's museum displayed gold artifacts he'd bought from local jewelers along with other curiosities the museum didn't just hold the antiquities that read my collectible it also held things such as a stuffed polar bear clients from Alexander the Great etc and so it was probably quite unusual in the time in rural Ireland to have those type of items and therefore there was quite a few people traveled from far and wide to just come and visit the museum here in pill town Redmond Anthony's museum was not a vain pursuit by the mid 1840s the Great Famine was ravaging the country Antony believed his museum could help the entrance funds that were collected further museum he donates the fever hospital in character and sure which went a long way towards alleviating some of the suffering in Carrick unsure Redmond Antony died in 18-49 just as the Great Famine was coming to an end his museum closed and his artifacts were sold off but part of his collection would stay together not in pill town but in London dr. Neal Wilkin is the curator of the Bronze Age collection at the British Museum mr. Antony's son sold the British Museum around 50 objects from his collection to the most fantastic objects he collected were a Bronze Age gold and we've got two of them here the first one is a gold Tork of a middle Bronze Age date so around the 14th to 12th century BC it's made from a single bar of gold that's been twisted in the hand from left to right with these terminals left at the end and hooked back to fasten it it would have been worn around the neck of a very important Bronze Age person objects like this talk contain valuable amounts of gold Antony kept close ties with jewelers so when a treasure appeared he bought it before it was melted down this fantastic gold bracelet that would have been worn around the armor upper arm one of the clever features of this object is that it appears to be solid but has actually been made from a tube of gold so it's hollow and in that way the Bronze Age Goldsmith could create the appearance of something solid using far less gold than would be required to make it completely solid Redmond Antony's gold would help build the British Museum's Bronze Age collection they still hold the list that came of the artifacts in 18-49 I can read you a few of the objects a lot from the list so we have a flange twisted gold torque a gold wire twisted bracelet another gold bracelet Gold sleeve fastener and another of those gold ring money and several more of those gold wire twisted fingering a golden ribbon torque it formed the B of the bronze age gold collection in the museum to this day scholars still come to the museum to learn about Brundage gold Redmond Antony is all but forgotten in Ireland but his legacy lives on at the British Museum in London an antiquarian he believed that this islands golden riches were worth saving many of Ireland's ancient treasures end up in the national collections through sheer good fortune thanks to a keen eye pyrin or a lucky turf-cutter but the story of how our next treasure became known to archaeologists is more extraordinary perhaps than the treasure itself and it all starts in a rural pharmacy Shyam's chemist in County was common has been an institution in strokes town since the 1930s but in 2009 this family-run business hit headlines around the world I got a knock on the door I was in bed at the time 20 to 8:00 in the morning it was the 27th of March 2009 and was a local guard there and he told me I had unwanted visitors during the night so out the hall door öand and in the shaft or the gate was down the door was wide open and already there were two guards here having a look around the place as she slept thieves had stolen the Sheehan family safe the contents looked inside despite the intrusion Suniva thought only papers had been lost next thing the forum rang and was one of my sisters and I told her what had happened answers all what about daddy's necklace and Isis what necklace Isis or the gold one and safe and Isis or secret hurt with the whereabouts of the necklace unknown a frantic search began word spread around Ireland eventually reaching the National Museum within minutes I got a call from Mary Carol in the museum to see she was coming down and herself and Ned and Kellee from the museum arrived I'd say within two hours they were here with two books and the three of us went into the kitchen together they set about pinpointing exactly what the necklace was and how important it might be we opened up the books and I identified there's this long yellow which is the first time that I heard then the word and these two discs and Ned Kelly when I pointed out what they were in his books he was hopping on the chair and he got highly highly excited and I thought he was really going to levitate it up and hit the ceiling I'd have to scrape Martha but at the same time I got such a fright because it was only then that I realized like the importance of these items the necklace was in fact a priceless gold artifact this new information kick-started the search within days the guard II had a breakthrough there were two lads from here going to work early that morning around 4 o'clock and they noticed a van up and down the street acting suspiciously so they they took note of the number and they arraigned guards so at least the guard said that just to go on the tip-off would lead to a discovery the contents of the safe had been tossed in a skip in Dublin I got a call then from the guards Andres Carmen and the invited us up to the guard the station two viewers and it was funny to see it laid out in these cardboard boxes with tissue paper and white gloves beside us I've never even handled the thing I never even had it in my hands for the National Museum and keeper of Irish antiquities Mary Karr Hill finding the gold was fantastic news and incredibly lucky they weren't noticed by the robbers because they're extremely flat they're extremely light and they were on a piece of card wrapped in brown paper and looked to all intensive purposes like a large letter or envelope so they were recovered intact and undamaged even more amazingly the hoard contained not only the lunula but two gold sun discs pulled from a bog together in coggle bag back in 1945 the kögel beg hoard sheds new light on our Bronze Age ancestors when we're talking about the period around perhaps 2,200 2,300 BC this is when gold working was first introduced to Ireland so any object of this type during this period can be truly called a treasure in its own right it's made of gold it's very finely worked it is a treasure however in the case of cocoa beg we have the additional value of the discovery of the gold discs and the lunula together discovering them together connects two distinct artifacts like never before and means that this chance discovery from Cheyenne's chemist could rewrite how we see a Bronze Age ancestors but there are still more mysteries to this story how did it end up in a pharmacist safe inand where archaeologists at all aware of it before they was stolen in 2009 we had no notion whatsoever the man who found it was a local farmer called Hubert Lanham and he used to buy products from Chien's chemists and he was not having an interest in history so Hubert Lannon had sold the items to mr. sheean presumably they were just forgotten about them that was the thing we were tucked away and being so light the unwrapped in paper yet they were just in an envelope with terra board backing to it and there was a lot of paper in the safe I went through all the stuff that was recovered from the skip in a Gyarados Helen he Roscommon beeping to find another couple of new Union leeteuk for treat the place well not going for what I was looking for was a details as to where he had acquired the objects what Ned find was vital evidence that the lunula and the Sun disk had been found together in the bog at Covell beg is that the first time member talena has been found with discs it's the first time we can say for certain we had always suspected that they we're associated objects but of course never haven't found them together you can prove that these are tool in uniform our collection which are similar to the cargo bag hoard they look incredibly thin actually it's easy to see how they were passed over by these robbers yeah it's thin but very heavy I mean you feel the weight of the gold as soon as I got it there on my fingers I teach the entire coven bag horde weighed about two and a half ounces about 78 grams they've almost like a statute a with tinfoil yes the base of the band but the metalsmiths really took advantage of the property's gold RV unique to alan grier there's an around a hundred lunula new one and total and it's estimated that around area from ireland and the other thing there's little little little scatter in scotland wheels and southwest England around Cornwall and the funerals who knew one from the continent so they really reinforce this idea that Ireland was a major producer of Bronze Age gold work right in the early Bronze Age through the middle and late bronze age it's such a great story the kögel boy called and the way it came to light and the fact that we've got this deathless association now between sun discs and Lenalee and I just hope that the next lunula turns up I hope that there's narky ologists there when it comes out to the ground what'd be nice to be that our archaeological discoveries can fire our imagination like nothing else giving us stories that bring our treasures to life yet archaeology is a relatively new discipline we often have others to thank for preserving our greatest artifacts today museums are the custodians of our most priceless objects but for centuries in Ireland precious treasures were entrusted to generation after generation of local families but by the 1800s many of these guardians were facing desperate poverty and say those riches were either sold or stolen which explains why our next treasure is not in Ireland but in London during the 19th century London was the place to be if you were an antiquarian it was the height of the British Empire and artifacts flooded into the city from around the globe these included Irish artifacts doctor Nev Whitfield is an Irish archaeologist living and working in Britain she's come to the British Museum to look for a treasure that for over a thousand years used to call Christian pilgrims to County Donegal the treasure isn't Connell kales Bell and the shrine that held it the shrine itself is beautifully decorated and a treasure and it's alright but the real treasure here is the simple iron Bell it's a rather ordinary looking Bell made for a single sheet of iron folders and riveted it may appear ordinary but this Bell is associated with a remarkable figure dating back to Ireland's earliest Christians in the sixth century AD legend has it that the barrel belonged to sand Connell Quayle he'd been a stonemason but he murdered his father did penance came to God and founded a monastery on in Ishqiya and island off the coast of southwestern nickel zinc Connell kale would be redeemed and his monastery flourished this Bell is part of his great legacy but it also reflects a transformation as Christianity took hold of a pagan Ireland such bells form part of what was probably the greatest change in Irish history because they were used to carry the Christian faith to an island at the extreme edge of Europe as far west as you could travel in the early Middle Ages here on the edge of the medieval world Connell kales bells served a sacred purpose calling Christian pilgrims to a holy site it was venerated for centuries during a pilgrimage to the island of village keeled right up to the 19th century to the pilgrims who venerated being in the presence of the belt was seen as a means of salvation for centuries the Bell itself was saved kept by the Oh Breslin family in Donegal they were believed to have descended from Connell Cael himself entrusted with protecting this precious treasure relics like this survived into modern times because they were looked after for centuries by hereditary keepers the senior old breslin would hold the bell forward to be kissed by pilgrims saying a penny for me and you may kiss the bear the Oh breslin's were the custodians of scent Connell kales Bell right up to the 1850s when poverty forced the family to sell the treasure they guarded for over a thousand years today it brings us back to a time when Christianity was transforming Ireland monasteries flourished as the Gospel message spread to all corners the artifacts reflect this change and here in the Ulster museum is one of Ireland's greatest religious treasures the Cornwall shrine dear to and around the seventh century so this is at a time and we'll Christianity how to ride and hand and with Christianity also came raiding but also the church demanded find pieces of network it's remarkably intricate and detailed and then so small but what do you think it was used for this was designed to hold the relics of a saint by the relics of a saint I suppose we're thinking about a piece of her or a bone or a tooth so we could imagine that I find the abbot of Parma what do I need I need a bell a book I did my closure but I also need my shrine the clone war shrine was made during a time when Irish monks were gaining renown across Europe at the center of this monastic movement was the city of our more close to where the shrine was found it was two Islands what would ruin mr. Utley at the time and we told that one of the reasons why our ma was so important it had we're told the relics of st. Peter st. Paul's and Lawrence one that I never get tired of like saying it also said that our Maya had the blood-stained sacred linen cloth of our Lord so that had they are my asteroid before that that you're enjoyed but we can imagine these small bits that people the latest those were imbued with pause we're heading inside the shrine and that's what if it's far the clone war shrine dates to a time when Ireland is often called the land of saints and scholars when Irish monasteries gained prominence as bastions of knowledge they would preserve ancient scholarship for centuries to come when the Roman Empire collapsed Europe was plunged into the dark ages 500 years for which there is little in the way of a written record but in Ireland it was a different story here right on the edge of the known world Irish monks continued to write producing exquisite manuscripts containing not only Christian stories but also as our next treasure reveals also preserving ancient Irish mythology and language everybody's heard of the Book of Kells it's so majestic some call it Ireland's Sistine Chapel penned in Latin in the 9th century it tells the Gospel story in 680 thousand pages of illustration and calligraphy in medieval Europe it illuminated the story of Christ catching the eye of anyone who glimpsed its pages and it's still true today housed at Trinity College Dublin over half a million people come to see these works of art every year but also in Dublin is a manuscript possibly more important to Ireland than the Book of Kells it's not written in Latin it's not even a biblical tale it's a book from the 12th century that tells the story of the Irish in the Irish language this book Luverne here the book of the dumb cow is the earliest surviving management entirely in the Irish language legend has it was written on the skin of a cow belonging to Saint Kieran the founder of the monastery of clonmacnoise in monasteries across the country the story of Christ was spread through the written word this book is not Christian in these pages are the ancient stories of pagan Ireland these tales are satin Aaron's pagan pre-christian past but were written by monks in monasteries who showed a great interest in this aspect of Ireland's prehistory in the characters the pagan characters in their customs their way of life and were totally at ease in dealing with this even though their own message was a Christian one recorded in this book are the mythological stories that bring to life the heroes of iron age Ireland the most important is the epic of the town led by the earliest champion of Ulster : among the tales contained and Iraheta is Hongik Willner at the cattle rate of Cooley the Irish national epic and just as accolades is the great hero of Greek tradition soku Colin is the hero par excellence of Irish tradition in this story the western province of Connaught attacks a depleted Ulster Army one man stands in the way of victory : problems of also is being defended by the youthful warrior kou : because all men are suffering an illness and he holds off the collar of the army until the Ulsterman have recovered and are able to join the fight with him and defeat the moment the epic of the town is part of the Ulster cycle a classic of Irish mythology as the earliest named version the book of the done cow stands alone and its importance to Ireland the stories contained in this manuscript have fired imaginations over very many centuries they're a very important part of Europe slippery heritage like Beowulf like the Old Norse Sagas like the Iliad as WB Yeats and said this is part of Ireland's gift to the imagination of the world and as such I believe this is one of Ireland's greatest treasures the book of the done cow records Ireland's earlier stories including the heroic legends of Ulster while these words were written in the 12th century the stories are set in a time before Christianity giving a snapshot of a pagan culture in Ireland you dr. Peter Smith is an expert in these ancient Irish manuscripts these are wonderful stories aren't they Peter it must be amazing to be able to read them in the original well the collection is absolutely fantastic and of course the Banco has that brilliant collection of the material from the Ulster cycle why do you think it's written in Irish I'm not not enlasa for the sagas the medium par excellence was the Irish language rather than Latin they have a sense of themselves they see themselves as a great civilization and clearly the medieval Irish monks saw it as one of their functions to record as much of that Shanna has or inherited lore as was possible the monks were discovering that ancient past inspired by the great works of literature they'd studied in Europe they Irish monks brought into their collections the books of classical literature that had survived from the final years of the Roman Empire and they realized it's all right to have a pagan past and if that was good enough for the people of continental Europe surely they could find a place in their hearts for their own ancient literature and from that they are beginning to construct the national history it's interesting isn't it because what you're saying is that the the mythology is being transformed into history rather than the other way right yeah exactly the medieval monks they find themselves without a written record for the very early period and this material acts as history in that sense my guess is that they probably saw this as fiction but they undoubtedly felt that there was some foundation of historical truth to it and I think that they held it in great esteem indeed these tales whether fact or fiction were now part of Ireland's and in more modern times would help to restore a lost heritage this material for a few hundred years became kind of the preserve of the Irish speaking world in the final years of the 19th century and the early 20th century the figure of kohonen becomes a very embodiment of the Irish hero if the Finns have their grit sagas and the Norse people have their sagas we have our saga in the form of the cattle raid of Cooley the time Bowl Cunha and it is I suppose the national epic and I think it's interesting with with stories that there's an evolutionary element to this that good stories in duel and that these are obviously very good stories they're you know they're persisting danger the centuries they still speak to us today these irish myths written down in the early 12th century have become part of the great tradition of classical literature chronicling the story of ancient Ireland but less than a century later that story would face turmoil in 1169 invaders from britain landed on the east coast of ireland it's often taken to mark the beginning of an English Irish struggle present to this day but as history records this relationship was not always how it appeared many of this islands treasures have been made to serve political purposes at some point in their history works of art used as pieces of political propaganda but our next treasure is a piece of political propaganda that looks like a work of art it was created 800 years ago and it reveals how an Irish City proclaimed its loyalty to an English king the great port city of Waterford it was here where some of the first anglo-norman invaders landed by the 14th century this was a royal port the trade link between England and Ireland Waterford had a monopoly but there was competition and the struggle for economic power would produce waterfords greatest artifacts stretched out before us is one of the most intriguing treasures of 14th century Ireland it's the great charter role of Waterford over four metres long and made of calfskin the charter role contains the earliest contemporary portrait of a medieval English monarch Edward the third and the first depiction of an Irish City Waterford this role is unique in medieval Europe there is nothing like this exists anywhere else and for that reason alone it is one of the great treasures of Ireland but beautiful as this object is it was never meant to be just a work of art instead it's a legal argument in which the city of Waterford pleads its case to remain the center of royal trade in Ireland in the face of a competing port at New Ross what this rule was trying to do was flatter the king keep the Kings attention above what was a very complicated legal dispute with the town of new Ross and hoped that the king would come down on the side of the port of Watford drawn into the role are subtle reminders of waterfords allegiance to Edward the third there all has on the top of it here an image of the wall town of Watford and above that King Edward the third receiving from the mayor of the city a key and that's the key to the gates of the city recognizing the fact that the king was Lord and owner of the city and that he could come and go as he pleases but this document represents more than mere flattery it is an overt declaration of loyalty to the English crown lined all along one side of the role our images of kings of England and here are what they were trying to say is not only was this a Royal City but also that it was a loyal City and had been continuously live since the very first English King came here to this city in 1171 however these warm words and flattering images only barely concealed a cold threat along with the great images of the Kings are the governors of Ireland company by four mayors and what we're trying to say it was if you diminish the port of Watford you're also diminishing the power of your other royal towns that's Dublin Cork and Limerick diminishing one of us you diminish all of us and you make enemies of all of your royal ports the threat would work King Edward the third kept waterford a royal port clinching the city's monopoly on trade in the coming centuries the relationship between England and Ireland would evolve but it would be fraught marked by war rebellion and deeply entrenched in myth seen clearly in our next treasure an artifact from Ireland's most famous battle the Battle of the Boyne was a turning point in Irish history when the Catholic King James challenged the Protestant King William at stake was the English throne but the legacy of William's victory was felt most strongly here in Ireland where 300 years later it is still a symbol of religious divide but like most histories this story is not as black and white as it seems it is as our next treasure reveals full of contradictions and surprises Collins barracks in Dublin originally built by the British to defend against Irish rebellion today it's part of the Republic of Ireland's National Museum and home to a symbolic and contentious treasure a relic from one of the largest battles ever waged on Irish soil the Battle of the Boyne fought in 1690 they've suffered the ravages of use and time but these doeskin gauntlets so beautifully made were actually worn by William Prince Mike it's very very tempting to imagine King William wearing these very gauntlets as he rode out to battle that hot summer's day in July 16 19 km is heralded for his victory at the Boyne where he crushed King James and his Catholic army for some these symbols of his leadership have become sacred whether or not these are actually battlefield artifacts is almost irrelevant these are intensely personal items and they still bear the physical impression of King William's own hands his well used gauntlets are important artifacts but it is the legend of Protestant King Billy that has become folklore King William's myth has grown over the centuries his victory over James at the bowing has been heralded as a largely Protestant triumph today the mythology surrounding William of Orange is one celebrated every year but in actual fact this story is not simply bound up in a religious divide the Battle of the Boyne was a European battle and the soldiers who fought in it were united by a complex set of political and military alliances often not based on religion at all King William had the support and backing of the Vatican whilst German Protestants fought on the side of King James ii so this battle is anything but clear-cut or black and white even the story of how this treasure ended up in Dublin is unexpected two days after the battle William gave his gauntlets to a friend near the battle site in County Meath he had stayed the night Atlas Mullen house the home of Sir John Dillon a very trusted officer to whom he gave these gauntlets and it would have been a very significant gesture they stayed with the Dillon's for over 200 years a treasured gift from a king but in 1923 they were rushed to safety during the Irish Civil War the smullin House was an obvious target the Dillon's were traditional landowners with clothes and established ties with the English aristocracy but the thing was the current Sir John Dillon was very well liked in County Meath so when the burning party came to this Mullen house they allowed him and his family to remove their most treasured possessions and that included King William's gauntlets this personal gift has become a cherished artifact from a symbolic battle but like so many treasures in Ireland's history their story has taken on its own mythology now these gloves are quite beautiful but obviously they connect us back to that key battle the Boyne becomes such an important pivotal battle because of its European context William is supported by the Pope hang on a minute William's Protestant that's right and his archenemy is Lou the 14th the ik affleck king of france the Pope wants an army to defeat Lou the 14th because he begins to feel that Louis the 14th version of Catholicism is actually stymieing that the powers of the Vatican say we have a Protestant King William fighting a Catholic King James but it's not that black and white is it it's not and that's the whole problem of subsequent interpretation and mythology if you like about the bowing is it becomes a clear-cut issue when it was anything but the legacy from a battle that still divides Ireland but one with surprising European roots we've revealed treasures that helped create Islands Celtic identity seen how manuscripts have saved ancient legends and been used as propaganda we finish with two artifacts from the 20th century declarations at the heart of modern Ireland north and south and always bringing us up to date well not quite it's still a century again now and we've brought these two documents to show me and these are incredibly important political documents well this is these are really you could say a legacy of the Boyne in a roundabout fashion we have on the left the Ulster's solemn League and covenant signed in 1912 by nearly half a million men and women and on the right we have public land air and the provisional government of the Irish Republic's proclamation of independence both of these documents have been inspirational to two divergent communities on the island so it also saw them leaving government then they they're saying that Home Rule would be disastrous to the material well-being of Ulster as well as the whole of Ireland that said which is completely the opposition completely the opposite you couldn't get two parallel opposites if you try doubtless this one says we are Irish and we will fight anybody who tells us any different and we can see the the ironies in the way that there for example the brighter horde was was handled by Edward Carson who's that very first signature on this actually a line with a nationalist party to bring the brighter horde back to Dublin and of course 1922 there's partition on the island and that horde ends up not in Belfast where he signs this covenant but in Dublin where they've posted this up on the GPO and I think it's fascinating all the way through looking at all of the different treasures that we've seen I'm actually including these I think I think these are there's a part of Ireland's treasures don't they are interesting in the context of their own time but they also remain incredibly significant and relevant to us today that's it we've witnessed this island's most iconic artifacts treasures that tell the epic story of Ireland from past to present you

Channel: Alan Espada

Views: 155,523

Rating: 4.7840238 out of 5

Keywords: Ireland, IE, Eire, Irish, Treasures, alanespada, Headford, Galway, 2016, History, Archaeology, Tara Broach, Broighter Hoard, Waterford Charter Roll, Dublin, Belfast

Id: pFJ4vn_ddSE

Length: 58min 42sec (3522 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 17 2016

Reddit Comments

[u/Gustyarse]

You can hear the english drooling in the intro, not even trying to hide it