'Missing' Irish chalice could finally be returned from UK — on loan

Chalice, which dates back to 1590, is currently held by the Victoria and Albert museum, which said it was 'available for loan to museums in Ireland'

The Mount Keefe Chalice Chalice is one of thousands of rare artefacts taken out of Ireland and brought to the UK. Picture: Victoria and Albert Museum 

One of Ireland’s oldest religious artefacts could soon be returned from England, A Cork Labour TD has claimed.

Seán Sherlock has been told the Government is to ask for the Mount Keefe Chalice back, even if just for a loan.

This follows an article in the Irish Examiner about the artefact, which went “missing” for more than 200 years.

A neighbour of the family who used to own it spotted it on display in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum in the 1960s.

The chalice, which dates back to 1590, is one of thousands of rare artefacts taken out of Ireland and brought to the UK.

They include the Annals of Inisfallen, which are a priceless and unique chronicle of the mediaeval history of Ireland, written between 433 and 1450.

Along with more than 30 other historical manuscripts from Ireland, they are currently held in Oxford’s Bodleian Library.

Mr Sherlock, who has called for important Irish artefacts held in UK libraries and museums to be returned, raised the issue of our artefacts being held abroad with Foreign Affairs Minister Micheal Martin.

In reply, Mr Martin told him: “In relation to the Mount Keefe Chalice, the minister for tourism intends to contact the British institution that holds this to follow up on press reports that suggest that it may be available for loan to Irish museums.”

That suggestion came in a statement to the Irish Examiner by the museum, which said the chalice is “available for loan to museums in Ireland”.

Mr Sherlock said: “I welcome any initiative that would seek to bring the chalice home, even if only on loan to begin with. It would be great if this could lead to a permanent repatriation somewhere down the line.

“This chalice is representative of a need for deeper engagement between our own cultural institutions and those in the UK for a reciprocal agreement on a needs basis.”

The Mount Keefe Chalice was used by two priests when they celebrated Mass during the Penal Laws that outlawed Catholic Masses.

It vanished after they were both murdered by English soldiers on a farm near the north Co Cork town of Newmarket around 1690.

A 30ft sycamore tree, known as The Chalice Tree, now stands at or near the spot where the priests were murdered, and later buried.

The family that sold it to the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1929 for £400 — around €25,000 in today’s money — have said it was most likely bought by a relative in 1915 at an auction of items in a collection by Cork antiquarian Robert Day.

But nobody knows how 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 found it in the 1860s, when documents of his collections are known to have featured what he described as “Ecclesiastical Antiquities”.