Calls for Cork chalice to be returned to Ireland
The Mount Keefe Chalice Chalice. Picture: Victoria and Albert Museum
Important Irish artefacts held in libraries and museums in the UK should be returned, a TD has said.
Labour’s Seán Sherlock says the Government needs to open a dialogue with the British and get the items back.
Mr Sherlock’s call for a national dialogue about their return came in response to an article in the about one of Ireland’s oldest religious artefacts turning up in an English museum.
Officials at the Victoria & Albert Museum bought the Mount Keefe Chalice from an heiress of a large country estate in Cork for £400 in 1929.
It is understood to have been stolen by English soldiers hundreds of years ago.
The heiress’s family believe it was most likely bought by a relative in 1915 at an auction of items in a collection owned by the famous Cork antiquarian Robert Day.
But nobody knows where Mr Day, whose controversial involvement in the discovery of gold ornaments in Cork in 1896 led to him being investigated by the Royal Irish Constabulary, got the chalice.
He may have purchased it in the 1880s, after the death of its then-owner.
The chalice, which dates back to 1590, is just one of thousands of artefacts taken to the UK.
They also include the Annals of Inisfallen, which are just one of a number of ancient Irish manuscripts in Oxford University's Bodleian Library.
The has learned there are at least 31 manuscripts for which the place of origin is listed as Ireland.
Asked recently if it was interested in the return of the chalice and other artefacts to Ireland, a National Museum spokesperson said there is currently “no open correspondence from the National Museum of Ireland to international museums seeking the return of objects on a permanent basis to Ireland’s national collection”.
Mr Sherlock said: “The response by the National Museum on the question of whether it is interested in the return of the Mount Keefe Chalice suggests to me a ‘let sleeping dogs lie’ attitude to repatriation of artefacts and antiquities that should be part of our national inventory.
“I believe strongly that now is the time to begin a ministerial bilateral dialogue with the United Kingdom on the return of the Mount Keefe Chalice and every other artefact, such as, for example, the Annals of Inisfallen, that are housed in British institutions.
“They are not the United Kingdom’s to keep. They should be returned.”
A V&A spokesperson said: "Our archives don’t include any information that suggests concerns that the Mount Keefe Chalice might once have been stolen, or that links it with a potential British military raid in Co Cork.
“We would welcome the opportunity to explore any new information that comes to light about V&A collections.
“The chalice is available for loan to museums in Ireland, which could support further study.”
The Mount Keefe Chalice is believed to have been used by the priests when they celebrated Mass in around the 1690s, during the Penal Laws that outlawed Catholic Masses.
It vanished after they were both murdered on a farm near the north Co Cork town of Newmarket.
A 30ft sycamore tree, known as The Chalice Tree, now stands at or near the spot where the priests were murdered, and buried.
Local folklore sometimes suggests the priests had hurriedly buried the chalice in a hole before they were murdered, and the Chalice Tree grew up out of that hole.
However, this is unlikely, as the tree has since been dated and is between 150 and 200 years old, but no older.
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