Irish Examiner view: Time to return Irish treasures

The Mount Keefe Chalice Chalice dates back to 1590 and is currently on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Picture: Victoria and Albert Museum

Is Ireland about to get some of its long-lost treasures back?

The Government is to ask for the Mount Keefe chalice to be returned to Ireland, even if only temporarily. 

Dating back to 1590, it is held in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, a long way from North Cork. 

The chalice was used by two priests for Mass under the Penal Laws until they were murdered by English soldiers near Newmarket in the late 17th century.

It is presumed to have surfaced in the collection of Cork antiquarian Robert Day, whose working methods attracted close attention from the RIC even in the loosely regulated environment of the 1890s.

Clearly the chalice belongs in an Irish museum, and it is not the only item which should be crossing the Irish Sea and coming home. 

As pointed out in this newspaper, manuscripts such as the Annals of Inisfallen are held in Oxford’s Bodleian Library; the Mount Keefe chalice was sold for £400 in 1929, but items such as the annals are priceless.

Readers will be aware of the ongoing controversy about the Elgin marbles. The Greek government has formally requested those be returned to Athens, having been stripped from the walls of the Parthenon by Lord Elgin in 1832.

The British government has refused to do so, perhaps fearing that such a precedent would lead to dozens of countries seeking the return of treasures stolen from them over the centuries.