such as a temple expresses the veneration of an idyllic past, or Golden Age, which was a central tenet of the doctrine of Irish nationalism. The raising of this building to ‘the godhead of Irish nationhood’ further expands on the idea that the past and how its interpretation was controlled through museum display became important in terms of imagining and defining the nation.61 These museum exhibits were a means of transmitting ideas about national territory, history and homeland, and reflect the nation in microcosm. The selection process itself was part of this nationalist endeavour. The Dublin Museum of Science and Art was opened in 1890 and was formally renamed the ‘National Museum of Science and Art, Dublin’ by its Director, George Noble Count Plunkett, in 1908. Count Plunkett, a cultural nationalist and Home Ruler, was father of the executed 1916 leader Joseph Mary Plunkett. The new title, according to Plunkett, was ‘more appropriate for the institution having regard to its representative position in the capital as the Museum of Ireland and the treasury of Celtic antiquities’.62
A State Framework for Irish Archaeology
Archaeology, as a useful political tool, underpinned visually the identity of the state as Celtic and Catholic. The process whereby ‘culture became a surrogate for politics’ applied to the discipline.63 It is described by Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh as a ‘cultural vision of decolonisation’.64 This decolonisation process, involving the reclamation, culturally and politically, of archaeological monuments and artefacts, had already begun in the nineteenth century. This is exemplified in the media furore over the British Israelite excavations for the Ark of the Covenant at the Hill of Tara in 1899–1902. Cultural nationalists, including Arthur Griffith, Douglas Hyde, W.B. Yeats, Maud Gonne and George Moore were involved in the protests to get the digging stopped as they regarded it as a ‘desecration’ of Tara, the capital of an ancient and independent Ireland. At the time, British Israelites regarded Tara as a royal site in the British Empire. They wished to recover the Ark and present it first to Queen Victoria and later to her son Edward VII.65
Another controversy of note at the end of the nineteenth century was the contested ownership of the Broighter hoard, discovered in 1896 in Co. Derry. The hoard, deposited some time after 100 BC consisted of gold objects, including two bar torcs, two necklaces, a bowl, a buffer torc and a beautiful model boat with oars and a mast. The objects were sold to a Derry jeweller, who sold them to Robert Day, an antiquarian, who sold them to the British Museum. The prominent Unionist, Edward Carson, represented the Royal Irish Academy (RIA) at a subsequent court case. The hoard was deemed to be ‘treasure trove’ and handed over to King Edward VII, who gave it to the RIA and the hoard later became part of the celebrated gold collection of the National Museum of Ireland.66
After independence the dominant cultural vision of nationalist elites was embedded into the discipline, reflected in the policies and practices of Irish archaeology. In 1927 the creation of a state framework for Irish archaeology was achieved by the provision of a new cultural policy document for the National Museum of Ireland: the 1927 Lithberg Report, prioritising Celtic and Christian artefacts; and the framing of the National Monuments Act, 1930, which defined a ‘National Monument’ for the first time. These important initiatives not only provided the framework within which Irish archaeology was practised under state control but also reflected the influence of Gaelic League ideology. Professor Nils Lithberg of the Northern Museum of Stockholm was commissioned to write a report on the purpose of the National Museum by the Irish Government. He was chosen for the task because the Northern Museum of Stockholm was ‘one of the most notable national museums in Europe’.67 Lithberg had been appointed as the first holder of the position of Professor of Nordic and Comparative Folklife Research there in 1918. The Northern Museum of Stockholm was described by Barbro Klein as a ‘culture-historical museum’.68 Culture-historical archaeology became popular towards the end of the nineteenth century. It was influenced by nationalist political agendas and used to prove a direct cultural or ethnic link from prehistoric peoples to modern nation-states. Growing nationalism and racism, according to Bruce Trigger ‘made ethnicity appear to be the most important factor shaping human history’.69 The Lithberg Report was the blueprint for a culture-historical museum in Ireland. It was very important in the context of the politics of museum display and was a key document in the nationalisation policy of the government for Irish archaeology.70 It was recommended that the collections should be ‘firmly based on Ireland’s native culture’ and that the gold ornaments from the Early Bronze Age, the artefacts from the pre-Roman Iron Age and the Early Christian Period should be kept separate so that ‘the collections will receive the glamour of ancient greatness to which they are entitled’.71 In the process, as Elizabeth Crooke put it, ‘The Museum and the Irish nation was reinventing itself’.72
The Lithberg Report was also important in the context of European identity. The American involvement in Irish Free State archaeology gave it a global resonance and satisfied an American desire in the 1930s for roots in old Europe. Thousands of artefacts recovered by the Harvard Mission archaeologists during their five-year project in Ireland were deposited in the National Museum. How the past was packaged for the viewer and how selected artefacts were displayed in the museum illustrated the official narrative of the nation’s history. This reflects Ernest Gellner’s view of the political principle of nationalism that ‘the political and the national unit should be congruent’.73 Culture, as represented by archaeology in the Irish Free State and its strategic display in a national institution was a politically aspirational endeavour. The emphasis on archaeology in the National Museum was heavily criticised by Sir Thomas Bodkin. He blamed this on the two former directors of the National Museum, the prehistorians Walther Bremer and Adolf Mahr, writing that ‘neither of them professed interest in the Fine Arts, and their well-nigh exclusive preoccupation with archaeology worked to the great disadvantage of the Museum’.74
The introduction of new legislation for the protection of archaeological heritage was also politically aspirational. In an address delivered to the Royal Irish Academy in 1927, R.A.S. Macalister, President of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, stated that ‘Ireland must remember that she holds in trust for Europe a large number of ancient monuments of unique importance: and the sooner legislation is obtained to facilitate the nationalisation of these monuments, the better it will be for the national credit of the Free State’.75
In the legislation enacted finally in 1930, a ‘National Monument’ was defined as ‘a monument or the remains of a monument the preservation of which is a matter of national importance by reason of the historical, architectural, traditional, artistic, or archaeological interest attaching thereto’.76 The word ‘national’ was a political rather than a cultural designation.77 The definition of ‘national monument’ caused difficulty because if politicians decided that the preservation of particular monuments was not a matter of ‘national’ importance, in theory at least, they didn’t have to be protected. The Dáil debates surrounding the National Monuments Bill give an insight into the political opinions involved in the interpretation of key concepts contained in the legislation. The embeddedness of a desired identity, reflected in the type of monument deemed to need protection, served the cultural and political needs of the state at that time.78
The debate about the validity of protecting Big Houses, seen as a vestige of Protestant identity, also surfaced. According to Terence Dooley, this was because the landed class ‘had come to symbolise colonial rule and their houses were symbols of an old order.’79 Apart from the symbolic and political difficulties inherent in their preservation there was also the prohibitive cost to consider’.80 For example, Coole Park, the residence of Lady Gregory, was sold to the Department of Lands in 1927 and demolished in 1941. There was some disquiet about its demolition expressed in newspaper coverage of the time because of Lady Gregory’s association with the Irish Literary Revival, W.B. Yeats and the founding of the Abbey Theatre. At the time, Lady Gregory and Coole Park were not seen as culturally valuable from an Irish-Ireland perspective.81 The Chairman of the Board of Works expressed the view that ‘no one is going to deny Lady Gregory’s claim to a place of honour in Anglo-Irish literature but it is straining it somewhat to suggest that her home should be preserved as a National Monument on that account’.82 If money was spent on preserving such buildings, it was argued, the excessive cost might affect the preservation
