In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century he was regarded as the most distinguished archaeologist in Ireland. O’Sullivan describes Macalister, in his position as Professor of Celtic Archaeology at UCD, as ‘the pioneer whose interpretation of the role set an ambitious standard for those who followed’.19
Adolf Mahr: ‘The foremost archaeologist in the country’
After independence, the Irish Free State Government brought in expertise from abroad for leadership in important economic and cultural institutions. When the position of Keeper of Irish Antiquities became vacant in 1926, Macalister suggested himself for the post in a letter to William T. Cosgrave, President of the Executive Council.20 The government, however, awarded the position to the German Prehistorian Professor Walter Bremer of Marburg in 1926.21 Following the premature death of Bremer, the Irish Government advertised the position of Keeper of Irish Antiquities all over Europe in an effort to find a scholar of European reputation. Adolf Mahr, an Austrian archaeologist, applied for the position and his was one of the last of thirteen applications received. He was appointed Keeper of Irish Antiquities on 29 September 1927.
Macalister approved of Mahr’s appointment and in 1928 expressed the view that: ‘The authorities of the Free State Government showed to the world that they fully realised their responsibility in the matter of the appointment of a successor’.22 Hencken regarded Mahr as ‘the foremost archaeologist in the country’.23 Mahr had been trained in the subjects of anthropology and ethnology and specialised in prehistory at the University of Vienna. He became an expert in the Iron Age and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Prehistoric Archaeology in July 1912. His doctoral thesis was on the La Tène Period in Upper Austria, which was later published as Die La Tène – Periode in Oberosterreich.24 He worked at the Museum of Linz in 1912 for approximately two years, reorganised the prehistoric collections and introduced a new Register of Acquisitions in 1919. At that time he also worked on an inventory of artefacts in the Museum of Hallstatt and wrote a book on this collection, Die Prahistorischen Sammlungen des Museums zu Hallstatt, which was published in 1914.25 Mahr was employed at the Natural History and Prehistoric Museum in Vienna from 1912 and held positions as Assistant Curator, Curator and Deputy Director of the Anthropological-Ethnological Department. In 1918, he took part in excavations in Montenegro and Albania and participated in excavations in Holland during the period 1919 to 1920. In 1926 he excavated the Grunerwerk salt mine at Hallstatt in Austria.
On 17 July 1934, de Valera appointed Mahr to the position of Director of the National Museum of Ireland, despite the fact that he was not an Irish citizen.26 He was enabled to do so as the nationality clause included in the regulations governing the filling of technical and professional posts had been omitted since February 1934.27 A permit under the Aliens Order 1935 was received in respect of his employment as Director.28 It appears that no other candidates were considered for this position despite E. Estyn Evans’s claim that there were ‘excellent applicants for the post from Britain’.29 An Englishman of Welsh parentage, Evans held the position of lecturer in geography at Queen’s University, Belfast from 1927. He was of the view that Mahr’s appointment was an illustration of ‘the strength of the hatred of all things British prevailing in Éire in the years following Partition’.30 But it was unlikely that applications were received from Britain as it seems that the post of Director of the National Museum was not advertised. Seósamh Ó Néill, Secretary at the Department of Education, suggested that ‘in the interests of this important National Institution, that an appointment should be made to the Directorship without delay’.31
Adolf Mahr has been described by Irish historians as a possible Nazi spy and was, according to John P. Duggan, ‘handily placed’ in the National Museum.32 Mahr became a member of the Nazi party on 1 April 1933, a year before his appointment as Director of the National Museum. It seems that de Valera was aware of Mahr’s links with Nazism in the 1930s but it is not known if he had this information prior to making the appointment. Frederick Boland, the Assistant Secretary of the Department of External Affairs, described Mahr in 1939 as ‘the most active and fanatical National Socialist in the German colony here’.33 Mahr had communicated his decision to resign as leader of the Nazi party in Ireland to the government in July 1938.34 He was not hiding his allegiance to the Nazi party and had corresponded in friendly and open terms with one of the Harvard team, the prehistorian Hallam L. Movius, about his political views.35 According to Dermot Keogh, Mahr, as Director of the National Museum was in a position ‘to observe as an insider Irish politics and society’.36 But Mahr wasn’t simply an observer. As Director of the most important cultural institution in the Irish Free State his position allowed him to influence the direction of Irish archaeology at a very important time culturally, politically and economically. O’Donoghue’s view was that it was Mahr’s position as a Nazi leader during the 1930s which gave him influence that he would otherwise not have wielded as a ‘humble museum director’37 is incorrect. The ‘humble museum director’ working under a nationalist government was the custodian of the past of a nation struggling to define itself as non-British, Irish and European within a global Celtic context. The Nazi regime did not consider its archaeologists to be ‘humble’. In Germany, the Nazis took over many institutions and generously funded research in prehistoric archaeology. They also controlled archaeological institutions in countries after occupation.38 Mahr was a founder member, along with Seamus Ó Duillearga and others, of the German Society for Celtic Studies, established in Berlin on 25 January 1937.39 The society was described in the Irish Times as ‘non-political and non-sectarian’; its aim was ‘to spread the knowledge of Celtic culture and languages in Germany, and to establish cultural and social relations between the Germanic and Celtic peoples’.40
The arrival of the Harvard Mission to Ireland was a godsend for Mahr, who was suddenly in the position to excavate a myriad of sites for which he previously would simply not have had the financial resources. He could see an opportunity for gaining knowledge about Irish archaeology and training Irish archaeologists in innovative techniques. There was also the possibility of self-aggrandisement as he could claim the credit for this massive cultural project. Mahr’s own eugenic thinking, which was the basis for Nazi ideology, would have made him partial to the anthropological views of Hooton and the Harvard team, explained in more detail in the next chapter.41 Irish archaeologists including Joseph Raftery, S.P. Ó Ríordáin and Michael V. Duignan were all trained at the National Museum under the tutelage of Adolf Mahr.42 They were given opportunities such as travelling studentships abroad and received scientific training on the Harvard and Unemployment Scheme sites. Joseph Raftery was appointed Keeper of Irish Antiquities at the National Museum in 1949 and later became Director in 1976.
Ó Ríordáin, a Catholic, had worked as a dockyard apprentice and earned a qualification as a teacher. While teaching in Cork he studied archaeology under Canon Patrick Power at UCC and took other courses in Celtic Studies.43 Canon Power, ‘whose competence was in the field of modern Irish, not archaeology’, had lectured on Celtic Archaeology at St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth between 1910 and 1931, becoming Professor of Celtic Archaeology at UCC in 1915’.44 Ó Ríordáin, one of Mahr’s protégés, was awarded a National University of Ireland (NUI) travelling studentship in 1931 and subsequently carried out research at universities and museums in Britain, Germany, Switzerland, France and Scandinavia. His study tour was co-ordinated by Adolf Mahr who advised him where to go and provided him with letters of introduction. When Ó Ríordáin returned to Ireland he took up a position at the National Museum of Ireland, where he received further training.45 In 1936, he was appointed to the position of Professor of Celtic Archaeology at UCC. On Macalister’s retirement in 1943 Ó Ríordáin was appointed to the chair of Celtic Archaeology at UCD. According to Kilbride Jones, Ó Ríordáin ‘liked to regard himself as the doyen of Irish archaeologists’.46 He influenced M.J. O’Kelly who was trained on Unemployment Scheme sites and who later went on to be the first curator of the Cork Public Museum in 1944. O’Kelly succeeded Ó Ríordáin as Professor of Celtic Archaeology at University College Cork in 1946.
In 1945 Michael V. Duignan replaced Monsignor John Hynes at UCG.47 Hynes, ‘a popular administrator and minor historian’48 and the first Catholic to hold the position of Dean of Residence, had been appointed as Professor
