Ardal O’Hanlon Tomb Raider
Ardal O’Hanlon Tomb Raider
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00:00Ireland's ancient monuments are majestic, spiritual, sacred sites that connect us to
00:18our earliest ancestors. Well, at least that's what I was always told.
00:31Our small island is full of mysterious sites like this one. We think of them as the sacred
00:36places, and I suppose they are. But the story I'm about to discover is not exactly sacred.
00:42No, it's sacrilegious, if anything. In the 1930s, just a few generations ago,
00:48the secrets found in places like this were at the centre of an epic quest. Not a quest for
00:54gold or treasure, but to explain the very origins of the earliest people in Ireland.
01:00A quest, no less, to find out who we are and where we came from.
01:04It was a time when intrepid explorers were digging for treasure around the world.
01:14For the next big find, all eyes were on Ireland.
01:18But partition was barely ten years old. Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State
01:23were busy forging new identities. In both states, a feverish search began.
01:31One place to look was the ancient past. And it all kicked off here in the hallowed
01:37landscape of County Sligo. In 1931, an American professor from Harvard University,
01:43he inspected these monuments, wondering if Ireland would be the place for his next big dig.
01:48Needless to say, he was hooked. And why wouldn't he be?
01:53This moment triggered an archaeological frenzy.
01:57Both north and south of the border, excavation teams raced to unearth evidence of the first
02:03Irish men and women. Unearthing this story will take me to some unexpected places.
02:09This is literally the end of the world. Honestly,
02:12it wouldn't surprise me if we actually find some ancient Celts up here.
02:16I'll experience some strange science.
02:19She's only reading the instructions now.
02:21Uncover dark history.
02:23And get a flavour of the footloose world of early Irish archaeology.
02:26I mean, nowadays, we'd be thinking serious health and safety headache.
02:31My own quest is to uncover what they found, and what it says about us.
02:37And to figure out why this story has been forgotten for so long.
02:54The one thing I was always sure about growing up was my Irish identity.
02:58I was steeped in our myths and legends as a child, and enthralled by our unique sports and music,
03:04our native tongue, and not least my Celtic heritage.
03:08So when I stumbled upon this story, I was fascinated, but also nervous.
03:14I mean, I hope I haven't been deluding myself all these years about who we actually are.
03:19My own delusions aside, there's one thing you need to understand about this story.
03:25In the 1930s, our mysterious megaliths were even more mystical than today.
03:33North and south, many of these monuments were simply called Celtic,
03:38because no one really knew who built them.
03:42But with the new border, these ancient sites became, well, political.
03:46In the south, the idea of a Celtic origin was central to Irish identity.
03:53But in Northern Ireland, some were questioning these Celtic roots.
03:58This is tricky history, so I'm hoping Professor Diermoud Ferreter
04:02can explain how Northern Ireland was forging its own path.
04:07This is an illustration of their own path. Very iconic image.
04:12Edward Carson outside the Stormont Parliament,
04:14they were an announcement that Northern Ireland had arrived.
04:18The statue of Carson was actually unveiled in 1933, when he's still alive,
04:23and he is the godfather of modern Ulster unionism.
04:27And the unveiling of the statue, of course, was a reminder that this is where it started.
04:32...their ancestors' loyalty to William of Orange, King of England...
04:35And it is about loyalty to empire,
04:36but it's also about loyalty to the people of Northern Ireland.
04:40And it is about loyalty to empire, loyalty to crown.
04:46South of the border, there was a very different message
04:49from a newly elected leader, Eamon de Valera.
04:52Conquering hero arrives, Mr Eamon de Valera.
04:56Full disclosure, Eamon de Valera was a revered figure in my house.
05:00My father was a member of his party, Fianna Fáil.
05:03They even met, along with my mother, aunt and granny.
05:06As you can see, it was a big deal.
05:09So, I need a more objective view.
05:16It really heralds the dawn of a new political age in Ireland.
05:20De Valera, his new Fianna Fáil party, have taken power in 1932.
05:24This programme aims at restoring the unity of this island
05:29and creating an independent Ireland
05:32living its own cultural, economic and national life.
05:37What we're seeing here is also about de Valera setting out his stall.
05:40I am going to make Ireland self-sufficient.
05:43It's about political self-sufficiency,
05:45economic self-sufficiency, cultural self-sufficiency.
05:48We are embarking on a mission to make this a truly Irish Ireland.
05:53And in a sense, like, create an origin myth as well,
05:57harking back to a glorious Celtic past.
06:00There's a deep, deep reverence for the past, for Irish antiquity,
06:04for stressing we are unique, what we have brought to the world.
06:08There really are two state-building projects going on on the one small island,
06:12and they're drawing on particular traditions to reinforce that state.
06:16..to trace their ancestry to this little island with its long and tragic history.
06:21So, one of the interesting questions was whether the newly created border,
06:25the physical border from 1920 and 1921,
06:28actually reflected much deeper, more layered and deep-rooted differences.
06:33And that was where the research of the 1930s
06:35was going to throw up very interesting findings and conclusions.
06:41The archaeological world was fascinated by Ireland,
06:44drawn to the promise of discovering the origins of an ancient Celtic race.
06:49In 1932, an American archaeologist from Harvard, no less,
06:53brought his team to the country intent on digging up Celtic sites.
06:58They called it the Harvard Mission to Ireland,
07:00and their command HQ was here in Dublin.
07:04Dr Mairéad Carew is one of the few people
07:07who knows this forgotten story inside out.
07:11It seems to me that the whole archaeology field at that time in Europe
07:15was a bit of a macho pursuit.
07:16I mean, it reminds me of Raiders of the Lost Ark or something.
07:19You know, these guys scrambling all over Europe,
07:21trying to find something that would explain our origins.
07:25At the time, Ireland was perceived as having that pure Celtic heritage.
07:31There was loads of archaeological sites, so there was great potential.
07:36Right.
07:37Sounds like the perfect place to excavate.
07:40What were they trying to prove about our origins?
07:43They wanted to find out, really, who the Celts were,
07:47where they had come from,
07:49and who their descendants were in the modern population.
07:54Ah, the Celts.
07:55My tribe.
07:56My ancient ancestors.
07:59They believed that a lot of the beautiful objects that they had
08:02were made by the Celts.
08:04But there was an ancient civilisation, pre-Norman invasion,
08:08that we were descended from.
08:11And this suited the Irish Free State at the time
08:13to strike a distance between Ireland and Britain.
08:16They were looking for connections almost anywhere except Britain.
08:21They didn't want to be connected to Britain on any level.
08:26Don't worry, this isn't another story about England and Ireland.
08:30It's about Ireland and the world in the 1930s.
08:35And in the south, that story had a central character.
08:38An Austrian archaeologist named Adolf Maher,
08:41who came to work here at the museum in 1927.
08:45He was an expert in Celtic archaeology.
08:48A few years later, then,
08:50he was promoted to the position of director of the National Museum.
08:56He also pretty much hand-picked the sites for the Harvard mission.
09:01Now, I've been looking into this Adolf Maher.
09:04As an archaeologist, he'd worked on some of the most important Celtic digs in Europe.
09:11In 1927, the same year Bewley's opened here on Grafton Street,
09:15the 40-year-old Maher saw an advert in an Austrian newspaper
09:19for the job here in Dublin.
09:23Now, the awkwardness of this job was that it was a bit of a challenge.
09:27Now, the awkward thing about Adolf Maher is that he'd become a Nazi,
09:32card-carrying and bona fide.
09:34In fact, he was the most prominent Nazi in all of Ireland.
09:37But in 1927, he was just an archaeologist,
09:40with a single passion, an obsession, really, for all things Celtic.
09:44Adolf Maher's Celtic-facing history suited the Irish Free State just fine.
09:51But across the border in Northern Ireland,
09:53a different view of history was emerging.
09:58I grew up in County Monaghan, along the border.
10:00So that makes me an Ulster man.
10:03Oh, yes.
10:05And even though you mightn't recognise the border
10:08as a geographical fact or politically,
10:12it definitely shapes you to some extent.
10:14When people hear you're from Monaghan, from Ulster,
10:18they assign you certain characteristics.
10:21They think of you as maybe doer, deadpan,
10:25or reserved.
10:27Watchful is the word I prefer.
10:29So it's fairly clear.
10:31Where you grew up shapes your identity,
10:35whether you like it or not.
10:37So, technically, I'm an Ulster man.
10:39And now I'm headed to Belfast.
10:43In the wake of partition,
10:45Northern Ireland began to bolster its cultural institutions.
10:49In 1929, the Ulster Museum opened.
10:54And the state also brought in some outside expertise.
10:58While Adolf Marr was quickly becoming
11:00the most important archaeologist in the Irish Free State,
11:04another blow-in was settling into a new life here in Belfast.
11:08And he was to become
11:10the most important archaeologist north of the border,
11:12an arrival to Hermar.
11:18So, let's hear it for Welshman,
11:20Emir Esten Evans,
11:23a professor at Queen's University Belfast.
11:27All through Ireland,
11:29you have the remains of circular enclosures
11:31called rats or fairy forts.
11:35And round the corner from the Ulster Museum
11:37is his home.
11:39Luckily, his son Alan still lives here.
11:41I've come to have a good nose
11:43through the old family archive.
11:53For your interest.
11:55Oh, thank you.
11:57Photographs from digs in the 1930s.
11:59Ah, lovely.
12:03Fast forward, holiday snaps,
12:05rather fetching, old-fashioned swimming costumes.
12:09According to my mother, he was very good-looking,
12:11and I'm sure she was right.
12:13Digging at Lyles Hill,
12:15which my father was excavating in 1937-38.
12:20This is Derry.
12:22And here, we're here at Achnesgate.
12:24So, obviously, they were camping.
12:28My mother as a young woman,
12:30my father as a young man.
12:32Geographical Association.
12:34Visit, 1933.
12:36And here we have Goward.
12:38This is in May, 1932.
12:42Was that the first time he dug in 1932?
12:44That's the first dig, yes.
12:46That took him six days.
12:49It was a bit of a smash and grab.
12:51So, Alan, how did your father end up in Belfast?
12:55He'd finished his basic degree
12:57in Aberystwyth,
12:59which was in anthropology
13:01and geography,
13:03and a job came up.
13:05He was interviewed on his 23rd birthday
13:07to set up a geography department
13:09at Queen's,
13:11and was given the post.
13:13He became interested in archaeology
13:15and basically started
13:18archaeology or revived archaeology
13:20in the North of Ireland.
13:22It must have been quite an exciting time,
13:24I imagine, in Belfast,
13:26a relatively new state.
13:28I guess people like your father
13:30got a free run of things, really.
13:32Yeah, I think that is true.
13:34It started off very much
13:36on an amateur basis.
13:38The first dig at Goward,
13:40his main helper was my mother.
13:42They'd been married a year.
13:44And some more dedicated amateurs,
13:47they'd come to Belfast.
13:49Eston Evans wanted to trace
13:51Ulster's early settlers
13:53by studying the ancient
13:55megalithic court tombs
13:57dotted around the landscape.
13:59He had this particular interest
14:01in these court graves or court tombs.
14:03What was his fascination there?
14:05It was really
14:07an intellectual challenge
14:09to decide
14:11what was their source.
14:13Did they come across
14:15from the East,
14:17across Scotland,
14:19from Northern Europe?
14:21They seemed to have
14:23a predominantly Northern distribution.
14:25They were interested in studying
14:27and finding out all they could about them.
14:29It probably took an outsider
14:31to do that.
14:33Yeah, I think it did.
14:35I believe it took an outsider
14:37to really be interested
14:39in the megalithic structures.
14:41He seemed to discover
14:43that the people of Northeastern Ireland
14:45had a special character
14:47that was there long, long before partition.
14:49A character all of its own.
14:51Yeah, I mean, he did
14:53like the north of this island.
14:55It must have been
14:57incredibly exciting,
14:59stumbling upon a ruin
15:01that was neglected.
15:03It wasn't even considered to be a ruin.
15:05It was just a pile of stones in a field.
15:07Nobody even knew it was there.
15:09He comes across these sites
15:11with his friends and his wife,
15:13and he finds evidence
15:15of prehistoric civilization.
15:17The thing that drove him
15:19was just an insatiable intellectual curiosity
15:21to try and understand
15:23the past.
15:27I think I need to see
15:29these piles of stone for myself.
15:31So I'm headed to County Down,
15:33to the little townland of Gower.
15:35This was the location
15:37of Evan's very first dig.
15:39It would put Northern Ireland
15:41firmly on the archaeological map.
15:43But for me,
15:45the Gower Court Tomb,
15:47well, it's proving a bit difficult to find.
15:49So we take a left.
15:51Where do we go?
15:53Left. Somewhere else.
16:03Wrong way. Sorry.
16:05What?
16:07Wrong way.
16:13Somewhere around here
16:15in 1932,
16:17Eston Evans broke ground
16:19on his first big dig
16:21here in the foothills of the Moher Mountains.
16:23I honestly don't think anyone
16:25has been here since.
16:27This is literally
16:29the end of the world.
16:31Honestly,
16:33it wouldn't surprise me
16:35if we actually find
16:37some ancient Celts up here.
16:47Now,
16:49Eston Evans' digs
16:51may look small and amateurish,
16:53but they're actually
16:55not small and amateurish.
16:57Here at Gowert,
16:59he had what he described
17:01as meagre funding
17:03from the Belfast Natural History
17:05and Philosophical Society.
17:07Big spenders.
17:09But he made do
17:11and did valuable work
17:13with what he had.
17:17So Alan gave me this photograph.
17:19It's his father and mother
17:21standing, I think,
17:24These stones once formed
17:26what's now called a court tomb.
17:28It's where Neolithic people
17:30interred their dead
17:32around 5,000 years ago.
17:34Like myself, Eston Evans
17:36was fascinated by them.
17:38This is a copy of the dig report.
17:40Just a few pages
17:42describing the excavation.
17:44Evans, he called
17:46this tomb a horned cairn
17:48because the rocks are laid out
17:50like devil's horns.
17:52The report also lists
17:54what Evans found.
17:56Some pottery,
17:58several quartzite pebbles,
18:00a good deal of charcoal
18:02and unworked burnt flint.
18:04Pebbles and burnt flint.
18:06Not exactly Tutankhamen's tomb.
18:08But interesting nonetheless.
18:10It may sound underwhelming,
18:12but Eston's dig here
18:14at Gowert was the first
18:16scientific excavation
18:18on a court tomb ever.
18:20It was important
18:22because it actually tried
18:24to map out the site
18:26and compare it to others.
18:28But for Eston,
18:30it also marked the beginning
18:32of a grand theory
18:34that these Ulster megaliths
18:36were built by people
18:38with roots in Britain,
18:40most likely Scotland.
18:42A few weeks after
18:44Eston Evans left Gowert,
18:46the Harvard mission
18:48esteemed Hugh O'Neill Henkin,
18:50an American professor
18:52with both Irish and German roots.
18:54His first dig
18:56was in Ballanderi Bog
18:58in County Westmeath.
19:00The excavation was anything
19:02but meagre.
19:04This is the dig report
19:06for Ballanderi. It's long,
19:0880 pages long. Don't worry,
19:10I'm not going to read the whole thing.
19:12But at the start,
19:14there's a special credit.
19:16...in cooperation with,
19:18and under the auspices of,
19:20the National Museum of Ireland,
19:22which has very kindly granted
19:24every facility an assistance,
19:26both in excavation and museum study,
19:28through the kindness of the director,
19:30Dr. Adolf Marr.
19:32Dr. Marr is also called upon
19:34officially to inspect the excavations.
19:36Sounds like Dr. Marr
19:38is a bit of a control freak.
19:40The dig at Ballanderi
19:42was on what's called a crannog.
19:44The man-made islands
19:46thought at the time to be Celtic.
19:50It was, for one thing,
19:52an ancient Irish custom
19:54to live on lake islands,
19:56crannogs or lake dwellings.
19:58Crannogs were well known here,
20:00but I wonder what the Harvard
20:02mission made of them.
20:04The Americans had never come across
20:06a crannog before, I presume.
20:08Hugh O'Neill Henkin, what he actually said was,
20:10I learned how to dig a crannog
20:12It was the first
20:14scientifically excavated crannog,
20:16and it worked.
20:18They found 650 artefacts,
20:20from swords,
20:22to pins,
20:24to ornate hanging bowls.
20:26What the star find was a strange one,
20:28an ancient gaming board.
20:30What Henkin said,
20:32and others said at the time,
20:34was it was some sort of little war game.
20:36Like checkers?
20:38Something like that,
20:40because as far as Henkin was concerned,
20:42the Celts were into their games.
20:44This gaming board
20:46lit up the international press.
20:48One Chicago newspaper
20:50reported it as
20:52a carved backgammon board,
20:54which was used a thousand years
20:56before St Patrick came along.
20:58Then, noted dryly,
21:00a couple of smashed skulls
21:02were unearthed alongside.
21:04This would seem to point at some
21:06ancient debate over rules.
21:08It was just ten years after
21:10Tutankhamen's tomb had been opened in Egypt,
21:12kicking off a global craze
21:14for archaeology.
21:16Ballanderi put Ireland on that map.
21:20But it almost didn't happen,
21:22because the dig was actually
21:24rejected by the Ancient Monuments
21:26Council of Ireland.
21:28Adolf wrote to a friend
21:30about this dig. I'm not going to do the accent.
21:32As I knew the Americans
21:34would not abuse my confidence,
21:36I got so annoyed about
21:38the stupidity of my council
21:40that I simply broke the law,
21:42of which I am supposed to be the main watchdog.
21:44I gave them the best crannog
21:46to excavate of which I knew.
21:48Well, as they say,
21:50it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
21:56Like Eston Evans, Adolf Maher
21:58was working on a grand theory.
22:00But instead of Scotland,
22:02he was convinced Ireland's ancestors
22:04came from the Celtic tribes of Europe,
22:06and that crannogs
22:08represented Celtic architecture.
22:10But his contention was that
22:12there was some pan-European culture.
22:14Exactly.
22:16Like, he believed that, yeah,
22:18there was sort of a pan-Celtic culture
22:20across Europe.
22:22And that Ireland was the last vestiges of this.
22:24Exactly. And that you were more likely
22:26to get evidence for your
22:28pure Celtic race
22:30here in Ireland.
22:34Maher loved the idea
22:36of a grand Celtic race
22:38and thought the world would love it too,
22:40especially Irish-Americans,
22:42who were gaining more and more clout in the US.
22:44In 1932,
22:46the Yanks were busy preparing
22:48for the Chicago World's Fair,
22:50an event not lost on Adolf Maher.
22:54Usually the headlines were
22:56ancient Celtic glory,
22:58which Adolf Maher was behind
23:00because he did the press release.
23:02When it came to the Chicago World's Fair,
23:04there was an exhibition
23:06called A Century of Progress
23:08in Irish Archaeology,
23:10and these three objects,
23:12they were put in the...
23:14As evidence of a great pre-Anglo-Roman civilization.
23:16Well, what they called it was
23:18evidence of the genius of the Celtic race.
23:20This Chicago World's Fair
23:22was obviously
23:24a pretty important event,
23:26and it kind of put Ireland on the map a little bit.
23:28The whole idea was to show Americans
23:30who were related to the Celts
23:32by blood what the genius
23:34of the Celtic race was.
23:36It kind of worked. It gave Irish-Americans
23:38particularly a lot of pride in their roots.
23:40Absolutely, yeah, it did.
23:44Another depiction of ancient Ireland
23:46also landed
23:48at the Chicago World's Fair
23:50in 1933.
23:52Images taken by an Irish-American
23:54who'd come back to the old country.
23:56Robert Flaherty's documentary
23:58Man of Arran would kind of
24:00take the world by storm.
24:02I remember seeing this first as a sneering
24:04student in the 1980s,
24:06but even then,
24:08I found it quite stirring.
24:10Robert Flaherty
24:12came from Michigan,
24:14but had an Irish father.
24:16He was a very well-established and successful filmmaker.
24:18He had first visited the Arran Islands in 1931.
24:20He spent nearly
24:22two years on Inishmore,
24:24the largest of the Arran Islands.
24:27He's drawn to this idea
24:29of an ancient civilization
24:31on the fringes of Europe.
24:33You couldn't find
24:35a more isolated
24:37and remote community.
24:39The timing of this
24:41was interesting.
24:43It satisfied that need
24:45for recognition of the Irish struggle,
24:47of the Irish traditional way of life,
24:49of the heroic self-reliance
24:51and self-determination
24:53that we would triumph,
24:55that we would succeed against the odds.
24:57But under the surface,
24:59not everything in Man of Arran
25:01was as it appeared.
25:03What he is depicting is a way of life
25:05that has actually ceased.
25:07For example, the most famous scene
25:09in Man of Arran, the shark hunt,
25:11the attempt to try and get the shark
25:13with the harpoon.
25:15They had long stopped
25:17hunting in that way.
25:19The actress who
25:21performed that role,
25:23she remained in how this
25:25used to be done.
25:29They're hunting the shark
25:31for oil, for lamps.
25:33But electricity had already come
25:35to Inishmore,
25:37so Flaherty is conveniently
25:39easing out the modern world.
25:41He's just idealising and romanticising
25:43this primitive way of life.
25:45There is an idealisation
25:47of the primitive way of life.
25:49The climax of Man of Arran
25:51is when the Arran islanders
25:53are rowing to get home, as you do.
25:55But amidst the tempest,
25:57a prominent Austrian
25:59lay just off camera.
26:01Adolf Maher with Gustav, his son,
26:03was watching it
26:05from a small steamship,
26:07which must have been difficult
26:09when you realised
26:11the scale of the tempest.
26:13Flaherty would have
26:15consulted with Adolf Maher.
26:17Flaherty had to get
26:19a very strong sense of
26:21the history that lay behind
26:23what he was taking on.
26:25Did Irish people
26:27have flocked to see it themselves?
26:29When you look at the Irish premiere,
26:31Eamon de Valera is there
26:33as head of government.
26:35WB Yeats, Ireland's greatest
26:37living poet, Nobel laureate.
26:39This is a big deal.
26:41It's showcasing
26:43Irish self-sufficiency.
26:45Adolf Maher was also
26:47at the premiere.
26:49What he saw was the perfect portrayal
26:51of his notion of the ancient Irish Celt.
26:57Esten Evans, researching up in Belfast,
26:59was always more precise
27:01and factual in his conclusions.
27:03The purpose of this mound
27:05has never been explained,
27:07and its excavation offers
27:09exciting possibilities.
27:11I also learned the upstanding
27:13Queen's professor was not one
27:15of us in the past.
27:17In one of Esten Evans' books,
27:19I came across a telling line.
27:21I am no supporter of those
27:23who, indulging in sentimental regrets
27:25for a Celtic twilight
27:27of doubtful authenticity,
27:29find in the past a golden age
27:31to which they would have us return.
27:33Ooh!
27:35I think it's fair to say
27:37that Evans would not have been impressed
27:39by Maher's fixed notion
27:41of the ancient Irish Celt.
27:43Adolf Maher
27:45was the undisputed champion
27:47of archaeology in the Irish Free State.
27:49Esten Evans
27:51was the champion of archaeology
27:53in Northern Ireland.
27:55But their views on Irish prehistory
27:57couldn't be more different.
27:59So it may seem strange
28:01that in 1934
28:03Maher asked Evans to excavate
28:05a court tomb for him in County Louth.
28:07But Maher knew
28:09Evans was the best man for the job
28:11and court tombs
28:13were his speciality.
28:17The location
28:19at Agnescy,
28:21as described by Evans,
28:23is classic rural Ireland.
28:25Kerney lies on the land
28:27of the late Owen Matthews,
28:29now occupied by Mrs Grey.
28:31But access to it
28:33was obtained through the property
28:35of Mrs Keenan.
28:37Today,
28:39the two sites are tucked behind
28:41an old mushroom farm,
28:43which is where American-born archaeologist
28:45Matthew Stout is attempting
28:47to locate them for me.
28:49One, two, three,
28:51and maybe a fourth one over there.
28:53You had a cairn
28:55and you had access into the cairn
28:57through these galleries.
28:59These galleries would have been
29:01covered and open
29:03so you could have accessed them
29:05generation after generation
29:07The emphasis was on tomb,
29:09court tomb, passage tomb.
29:11For Evans, excavating
29:13another court tomb
29:15gave him more data as he worked out
29:17his theories on where the Megalith
29:19builders came from.
29:21But the dig at Agnescy was different.
29:23Here he had resources,
29:25men commandeered under
29:27a new unemployment scheme
29:29created by Eamon de Valera.
29:31One of the things that S and Evans
29:33liked about this site was that it was
29:35circular and there are
29:37circular type gallery
29:39graves in Scotland.
29:41For Evans, this was evidence
29:43that the Neolithic people
29:45who built this Megalith
29:47were from Scotland.
29:49Behind me you can see
29:51the mountain which marks
29:53the border with Northern Ireland.
29:57Over that mountain
29:59in that direction you have
30:01Carlingford Lock.
30:03He believed that this was the entry point
30:05for the Neolithic settlers
30:07that came from Scotland up into
30:09the north east of Ireland.
30:11In contrast, he thought
30:13the Neolithic settlers in the south
30:15came up the River Boyne.
30:17His idea was that the boundary
30:19stretched back to prehistoric times.
30:21That was mirrored in the fact
30:23that you had one type of
30:25prehistoric culture in the north
30:27which was people who built court tombs
30:29and the other type of
30:31prehistoric culture in the south
30:33were the people who built passage tombs.
30:37S and Evans saw court tombs
30:39as distributed coast to coast
30:41across the whole northern
30:43half of the island.
30:47But in Matthew Stout's opinion
30:49how others used his theories
30:51was beyond Evans' control.
30:53Now Evans was a man of fierce integrity
30:55and there's no question
30:57that he would have altered his opinions
30:59to suit the needs
31:01of the six county government
31:03but it just so happened that
31:05the theories that he genuinely held
31:07suited the idea that
31:09the six counties of Ireland
31:11were always separate from
31:13the rest of Ireland.
31:15However, Evans was also
31:17concerned about the direction
31:19archaeology was taking in the Irish
31:21Free State.
31:23He was very conscious of the work
31:25that was being done in the Free State
31:27to focus all the attention
31:29on the Celtic period.
31:31He rejected the arguments
31:33of racial purity.
31:35He wasn't going to get involved
31:37in the whole idea of the Celts
31:39or of the master races or anything like that
31:41but that meant he never got involved
31:43in the theories that maybe
31:45Adolf Marr might have been
31:47interested in pursuing when he brought
31:49the Harvard team over.
31:51Racial purity?
31:53Hmm.
31:55Just what was Adolf Marr
31:57and the Harvard mission getting up to
31:59on this island?
32:01It doesn't sound much like archaeology.
32:05Here in Trinity College Dublin's
32:07old anatomy building
32:09I have a feeling I'm about
32:11to find out.
32:13Hello, how are you?
32:15Hi. Nice to see you.
32:17What is going on here?
32:19Well these are some instruments,
32:21calometers or calipers
32:23and we have a small collection
32:25from 1891
32:27when the anthropometric
32:29laboratory was set up.
32:31The Dublin Anthropometric
32:33Laboratory opened
32:35in the last decade of the 19th century
32:37to scientifically study
32:39the Irish race.
32:41Whatever that means.
32:43Like what is anthropometry?
32:45It is basically skull
32:47measuring and body measuring.
32:49The colour of your eye, your hair colour,
32:51cranial length, cranial breadth,
32:53cranial height, face length,
32:55face breadth, height, standing weight.
32:57But to what end?
33:01To what end
33:03is to find out
33:05the variations in people.
33:07By the 1930s
33:09when the Harvard mission arrived
33:11anthropometry was no longer
33:13an emerging theory. It was seen
33:15as established science.
33:17And so fast forward a few
33:19decades and then the Harvard mission
33:21came over and they were
33:23ostensibly archaeologists.
33:25But what were they up to?
33:27They kind of introduced a bit of this
33:29anthropometry as well.
33:31Yeah, so there was three strands to the Harvard mission
33:33and this was the physical anthropology strand
33:35and at the top of that strand is Ernest Houghton
33:37who is a Harvard anthropologist.
33:39He sets up a research team. There is two people in it.
33:41Helen Dawson and Clarence Wesley
33:43Dupertree and they come
33:45over in 1934 and 1936
33:47and what they arrived to do is
33:49sample as best they could the entire
33:51population of Ireland.
33:53The Harvard mission's
33:55anthropometric survey took place in
33:57every county in the Irish Free State
33:59and Northern Ireland.
34:01It meant quite a lot of travelling.
34:03Clarence Dupertree covers
34:0545,000 miles by car
34:07and Helen Dawson, she travels
34:09the countryside by bike and she surveys
34:111,800 females. Altogether surveyed
34:13almost 12,000 people.
34:15Not sure how I'd convince someone
34:17to take part in a skull measuring survey.
34:19His method is to find what he calls
34:21his rounders up and whippers in
34:23so he relies on a kind of
34:25informal network of Garda Síochána
34:27of parish priests.
34:29They'll be expected to go round up
34:31local men.
34:33I think they'd probably turn up because it sounds like
34:35it's a bit of crack or it's a novelty.
34:37Or paid. No, they're not paid.
34:39Not even a pint? Nope.
34:43Helen Dawson realises that
34:45a rumour has gone around
34:47that she's a Hollywood agent
34:49scouting for new talent and
34:51all of a sudden loads of young Irish girls
34:53appear and are quite happy to have their head measured.
34:57OK Siobhan,
34:59I can't put it off any longer.
35:01I need to know who I am.
35:03There's some instructions on the back
35:05of this sheet. She's only reading the
35:07instructions now?
35:09The Harvard mission undertook
35:11surveys in many towns and
35:13villages. They even took
35:15photographs of the local specimens
35:17which looked strangely criminal.
35:19Not sure how
35:21I feel about all this.
35:23We have to do a little calculation.
35:25155
35:27multiplied by 100 and then divided by
35:29200. We come up with a
35:31catholic index of 77.5
35:33so you are a middle classification
35:35which is probably great just to think
35:37that you're normal.
35:39I'm average.
35:41Right in the middle. Maybe because I
35:43grew up on the border.
35:45But what about the conclusions of the Harvard
35:47mission? Did all this data
35:49say something about us as a so-called
35:51Celtic race?
35:53And did they find anything?
35:55They recorded everybody's measurements so what we have
35:57is boxes and boxes of forms
35:59just like this, 12,000 of them.
36:01What use are they to us?
36:03If we want to know what the physical measurements
36:05of people were in the 1930s, they're great.
36:07If we want to know what makes them distinctively
36:09racially Irish, they're not worth anything.
36:11Were the intentions
36:13noble at the time?
36:15It sounds suspiciously like what we now know as
36:17eugenics.
36:19Eugenics is really
36:21the idea behind it is that
36:23there's a hierarchy of races.
36:25So at the top
36:27were Aryan populations, Nordic populations,
36:29white populations.
36:31Tied up with notions of nationalism and race.
36:33Absolutely, yeah.
36:35It justified a sort of racialist thinking
36:37that sort of advocated that there were
36:39superior humans and inferior humans.
36:41I mean it's
36:43creepy stuff. It's very dubious isn't it
36:45and sinister and ultimately I suppose
36:47Nazi genocide is the
36:49ultimate outcome. It's the end of the spectrum.
36:55Let me just remind you
36:57the Harvard mission's visit
36:59took place
37:01in the 1930s.
37:05Benito Mussolini's
37:07brand of fascism
37:09had already been rooted in Italy
37:11for over a decade.
37:13And in 1934,
37:15the often angry and alarmingly
37:17popular Adolf Hitler
37:19swept along by his now infamous rallies
37:21was named Führer
37:23in Germany.
37:25Extreme nationalist
37:27governments were on the rise.
37:29So what was happening
37:31here?
37:331934 was a good year
37:35for Ireland. Well, at least for Adolf Maher.
37:37The Harvard mission was
37:39furiously digging up sites right
37:41across the island. Man of Arran
37:43won the Mussolini Cup for best foreign
37:45film at the Venice Film Festival.
37:47And, oh,
37:49a Nazi party was founded in Ireland
37:51with Adolf Maher as its
37:53first arts group enlighter
37:55or branch leader.
37:57Ireland's Nazi party,
37:59like others around the world,
38:01was made up of Austrian and German
38:03expats, many of whom
38:05held powerful positions like Adolf Maher.
38:07They'd meet
38:09together at the German Social Club
38:11or at a German-owned hotel
38:13in County Wicklow.
38:15Nothing to be alarmed about.
38:17Here's how the Irish press covered an
38:19Irish-Nazi youth camp.
38:21Hitler Youth, County Dublin holiday camp
38:23ends. A party of Hitler Youth
38:25who had been in camp for a fortnight
38:27at Hampton Hall between Skerries and
38:29County Dublin, dispersed yesterday
38:31when the German legation officials
38:33paid them a farewell visit.
38:35The party numbered about 25
38:37boys and girls, most of them children
38:39of Germans living in Dublin, some from England
38:41and a few from Germany.
38:43A portrait of Hitler
38:45hung inside the house, while
38:47over the porch crossed flags
38:49of Germany and the Hitler Youth
38:51were entwined with palms.
38:53As part of the programme,
38:55Adolf Maher himself,
38:57he had taken the youth on a cultural tour
38:59of Ireland, visiting historic sites
39:01such as Newgrange, where they looked at
39:03the Passage Tomb.
39:05Yeah, sounds like your typical week
39:07at summer camp.
39:09So as far
39:11as the media was concerned,
39:13the Hitler Youth was all a bit
39:15of fun.
39:17While Maher
39:19was busy building his Irish-Nazi party,
39:21the director of the Harvard Mission,
39:23Hugh O'Neill Henkin,
39:25and his Indiana Jones-styled assistant,
39:27Hallam Movius, began a new search.
39:29An attempt to bring them
39:31face-to-face with the earliest inhabitants
39:33on the island.
39:35Men and women who they believed
39:37lived around 10,000 years ago
39:39in the Paleolithic era.
39:43Kilgreenie Cave
39:45in County Waterford had been
39:47excavated in 1928,
39:49making headlines across the country
39:51because, well, they found
39:53Paleolithic human bones.
39:55Or at least, they thought they did.
39:57The Harvard Mission
39:59went back to make sure.
40:01So Hallam L. Movius,
40:03who was the Paleolithic
40:05archaeologist, went there
40:07in 1934 to see if he
40:09could recover more material.
40:11The rugged
40:13Hallam Movius and the Harvard
40:15Mission arrived with an army of
40:17excavators from de Valera's
40:19unemployment scheme.
40:21Very quickly, he started suspecting
40:23the 1928 archaeologists
40:25weren't up to the task.
40:27Now, he wasn't very happy
40:29with the previous excavator,
40:31E.K. Trattman, because he was
40:33a dentist, and he was
40:35one of these, you know...
40:37He was just looking for teeth.
40:39Like, he was with Bristol University,
40:41but he wasn't a trained archaeologist.
40:43More of a dabbler.
40:45Yeah, and you would have had a lot of people
40:47like that in the 20s and 30s,
40:49where they'd have an interest
40:51in archaeology, but they wouldn't have
40:53the training to back it up.
40:55Movius was very unhappy, so he did
40:57a much more scientific excavation
40:59and found that the
41:01Paleolithic man turned out to be
41:03a Neolithic man.
41:05That is, the bones were around
41:075,000 years younger than thought.
41:09Once again, the results made
41:11headline news, but not in a good way.
41:13So they didn't find
41:15the earliest Irishman in the
41:17Kilgreeny.
41:21Helen Movius and the Harvard Mission
41:23now had to reframe
41:25their search.
41:27It meant that the oldest evidence for people
41:29on the island was in Northern Ireland.
41:31Objects formed by humans
41:33were found in their thousands.
41:35Flints. Tiny flints.
41:37Just like the ones I passed in there
41:39without giving them a second glance.
41:43So the Harvard Mission
41:45headed north to Cushendun
41:47in County Antrim.
41:49Because, while flints sound
41:51boring to me, for those studying
41:53the Stone Age, they're pure gold.
41:55Where you find
41:57flints, you find the people who
41:59used them as tools.
42:01So the handsome Helen Movius began
42:03a series of digs, where flints are
42:05practically lying around.
42:07There were quite a lot
42:09of Middle Stone Age
42:11flint tools found
42:13in this bay and the surrounding area
42:15and of course all along the East Antrim coast.
42:17There might be just a chance I might pick one up
42:19as we walk along here, but so far
42:21I haven't seen anything.
42:23Cormac McSparran is an archaeologist
42:25from Queen's University Belfast.
42:27He's excavated at Cushendun before,
42:29so he knows what to look for.
42:31Upriver from the beach
42:33is where Helen Movius dug.
42:35A long-grown oversight
42:37Cormac is attempting to find
42:39using the dig report.
42:41It's reasonably clear.
42:43We've got the
42:45Dunn River on this side of us.
42:47Movius' site is
42:49located about 100 feet
42:51or 30 metres roughly from the point
42:53down there.
42:55What Movius had stumbled
42:57upon, by accident really,
42:59was something which was really quite well
43:01stratified.
43:03The uppermost strata
43:05is going to be the most recent, and the
43:07lowermost one is going to be the most ancient.
43:09Movius was able to
43:11dig into this bank
43:13and get this stratification
43:15going down.
43:17Several thousand years actually of stratification
43:19through silts
43:21and sands,
43:23another layer of silt, and then finally a layer of
43:25post-glacial peat.
43:27Five or six metres of open excavation.
43:29Huge amount of work
43:31done manually of course.
43:33Nowadays, we'd be thinking serious
43:35health and safety headache.
43:37Ah, health and safety gone mad.
43:39Looks to me like a bitter crack.
43:41But what Movius
43:43found in this strata
43:45at Cushing Dunn was like striking gold.
43:47Most of what he found
43:49was flint tools.
43:51Large, broad-bladed flint points.
43:53You can sort of see
43:55they've been trimmed here
43:57to fit onto a shaft.
43:59They're very sharp, even after
44:016,000, 7,000 years
44:03spent on the ground before it was found.
44:05Still really, really sharp.
44:07Still a very effective tool or weapon
44:09or most likely probably for hunting,
44:11to be honest with you, and fishing.
44:13You could spear things of all sorts with this.
44:15Having discovered
44:17his cache of flints,
44:19Movius began to work out where the people
44:21that used them came from.
44:23His money was on Scotland.
44:25He called it the Larnian culture.
44:27And this Larnian culture
44:29had similarities, he thought,
44:31to some Mesolithic material
44:33in the west of Scotland.
44:35And he thought that it was likely
44:37that they were related in some way.
44:39So the Larnian culture,
44:41named after the good town of Larn,
44:43were the first settlers in Ireland
44:45and they came from Scotland,
44:47according to Harvard's Hallam Movius.
44:49Down in Dublin,
44:51Adolf Maher didn't agree.
44:53Adolf Maher had
44:55a sort of competing theory.
44:57He believed that it was possible to link
44:59early Irish prehistory
45:01with wider European archaeology.
45:03His model stood in stark contrast
45:05to the model of Hallam Movius.
45:07Esten Evans' theories,
45:09though working in a different era,
45:11supported Hallam Movius.
45:13He very much also
45:15tended to tie Ireland
45:17generally into
45:19a sort of a more Irish
45:21and British milieu
45:23rather than a continental milieu.
45:25Hmm. Britain or Europe?
45:27Who to believe? Who to trust?
45:29What do you think, Cormac?
45:31The nation, the origin,
45:33is a tenuous concept at best.
45:35It's extremely difficult
45:37to tie down, but it doesn't mean
45:39that sometimes archaeologists have not
45:41got drawn into that.
45:45By 1935, time was
45:47running out for the Harvard mission.
45:49Their five-year plan was
45:51nearly over, but not before
45:53they'd excavated nearly 20 sites
45:55from County Cork
45:57to County Antrim and everywhere
45:59in between.
46:01So the Harvard mission
46:03had done its job, filling the museum
46:05in Dublin full of artefacts
46:07and impressing the archaeological world
46:09with new theories and incredible discoveries.
46:11But they'd never carried out a dig
46:13here in County Sligo, where Hugh O'Neill Henkin,
46:15first fallen for the mysteries
46:17of Irish archaeology,
46:19now was his chance.
46:21Henkin chose a court tomb
46:23located on Sligo's western shore,
46:25a site named Creavy Keel.
46:29The tomb was similar to the one
46:31Eston Evans had dug in County Down.
46:33But while Goward looked like
46:35a set of 1930s teeth
46:37with a few missing,
46:39Creavy Keel was an American-style
46:41set of dentures.
46:43Intact, perfectly preserved,
46:45gleaming.
46:49Local expert Martin Byrne has come
46:51to give me the grand tour.
46:53It really survived unmolested
46:55and undug, I suppose, until the Harvard mission
46:57arrived in 1935.
46:59So that may be one of the reasons
47:01why they picked it, was because
47:03it was in such good condition
47:05and it hadn't been dug by treasure hunters.
47:07In July 1935,
47:09Henkin and his men began digging
47:11at Creavy Keel.
47:13When they started,
47:15the tallest stone stood barely
47:17a metre above ground.
47:19Within days, gigantic boulders
47:22As it emerged, Hugh O'Neill Henkin
47:24tried to make sense of the core tomb
47:26as best he could.
47:28There's an interesting story about the capstone
47:30leading into the chamber.
47:32Three local brothers were bored one day
47:34and they came and they pushed it over
47:36and the locals all told Henkin
47:38that it used to stand upright
47:40but he didn't believe it ever stood upright
47:42so he put it back lying flat
47:44and it's actually the most dangerous thing
47:46on the site here because everybody
47:48who goes into that chamber
47:50has to be careful because
47:52it's quite difficult.
47:54I don't think so, not today.
47:58I'm still unclear
48:00about who actually built
48:02these megaliths.
48:04Are we talking about the Celts?
48:06I mean, are these people Celts?
48:08When I studied archaeology,
48:10we were told there's no such thing as the Celts
48:12and when you're a tour guide,
48:14you have to be very careful talking to people,
48:16particularly from America.
48:18They would have considered to be the Celts even.
48:20The Corkharn people are thought to have
48:22migrated through the Balkans
48:24and followed the line of the Danube
48:26and ended up in France
48:28and you have lots of people going up
48:30the east coast of England
48:32and you have people coming up the Irish Sea
48:34and you have people coming up around
48:36the west coast of Ireland as well.
48:38So these are German, French court tombs.
48:40But what about Scotland?
48:42Evans was right.
48:44There were people who came over from Scotland
48:46to find the monuments
48:48and people who came from France as well.
48:50The people who came from Scotland
48:52originally came from France anyway.
48:54So everyone's right.
48:56Eston Evans in Northern Ireland,
48:58Adolph Marr in Dublin,
49:00the Americans with the Harvard mission.
49:02I've visited these sites.
49:04I've read the reports.
49:06I've tried to get my head around
49:08exactly what these places are
49:10and how they relate to my identity
49:12as an Irish man and an Ulster man.
49:14But I need more to go on.
49:16I need a geneticist.
49:18So, essentially,
49:20you study old bones?
49:22Yeah.
49:24To summarise, yes.
49:26Dr Lara Cassidy
49:28is an expert in ancient DNA.
49:30If anyone can help me, she can.
49:32Would you like some gloves
49:34if you want to hold a sample?
49:36I suppose I should, really, shouldn't I?
49:38OK, so this is a petris stone.
49:40So can you see how this might
49:42fit on your skull?
49:44I'm hoping Lara can tell me
49:46who I am and how I relate
49:48to my ancient ancestors.
49:50We've been studying the Harvard mission
49:52to Ireland in the 1930s
49:54and then there was a guy up in Northern Ireland
49:56called Eston Evans who was racing around
49:58different historic monuments
50:00to try and find out, you know,
50:02who our ancestors were.
50:04So who do you think built them?
50:06Like, who built Creevy Keel, for example?
50:08Some very talented people.
50:10Well, and a community, I think.
50:12How did they relate to us,
50:14living on the island today?
50:18Distantly.
50:20The idea that the Irish population
50:22has existed in some type of
50:24crystalline state going back
50:26into the deep and distant past is...
50:28Really?
50:30It's very disappointing, Lara.
50:32So, our sacred sites
50:34weren't built by the Irish at all,
50:36at least genetically speaking.
50:38So what about me?
50:40Am I Irish?
50:42The modern-day Irish population
50:44can trace its origins probably back
50:46to a foundational event that happened
50:48in the early Bronze Age.
50:50Give me a date.
50:524,000 to 4,500
50:54years ago.
50:58And it's a movement of populations
51:00from the steppe region
51:02of modern-day Russia.
51:04If you're looking for
51:06an origin for the modern Irish gene pool,
51:08that's your foundation point.
51:10So, I'm Russian?
51:12Like, if you were to compare our DNA
51:14with the DNA of someone from the steppes now,
51:16would there be similarities?
51:18No, because you can't think that the steppe
51:20region of Russia stayed the same either.
51:22Because many of us were brought up with this
51:24very strong idea that we were descended
51:26from the Celts.
51:28But you have to be so careful in studies
51:30of archaeology, anything about
51:32the human past and genetics.
51:34And researchers definitely
51:36have the tendency to bring their own subjectivities
51:38into it.
51:40Well, they did in the 1930s.
51:42And it's a dangerous game, this whole,
51:44like, you know,
51:46where nationalism played a huge part.
51:48What are your findings about race generally?
51:52Race is not a
51:54genetic concept, it's not a biological
51:56concept, it is a social construct.
51:58People sometimes
52:00think that genes or genetics are
52:02a more fixed anchor
52:04of identity than, say, a culture or a language.
52:06We know culture and language changes all the
52:08time, but so do genetic
52:10populations. They're ephemeral,
52:12they're fluid, they're changing, their boundaries
52:14are fuzzy, and people are always moving,
52:16they're migrating, meeting and
52:18mixing. As a species,
52:20we have an incredibly recent
52:22shared evolutionary
52:24history. We all trace our homeland
52:26back to Africa.
52:29Hmm.
52:31Russian, French,
52:33Scottish, Irish
52:35and African.
52:37And where do you think
52:39we come from? It's a different
52:41answer, whatever sort of lens
52:43you put on it. Like, where do I come from?
52:45Where did my parents come from? My great-grandparents?
52:47500 years
52:49ago? 5
52:51million years ago?
52:53I suppose you can think whatever you
52:55want to think. That's the
52:57wonderful thing about human identity, isn't it?
52:59We can make our own, and we can
53:01make our own as a society as well.
53:03But the thing that unites
53:05them isn't their genes, isn't their culture, isn't
53:07even their language. It's calling
53:09this island home.
53:11If you're talking about looking for anchors
53:13of identity, that's a really nice
53:15one.
53:21The 1930s, however,
53:23didn't have the data from Lara's
53:25work on ancient DNA,
53:27nor did it have her open-mindedness.
53:29In September
53:311939, war was
53:33declared on Nazi Germany,
53:35starting a conflict that would shake most
53:37people's faith in humanity.
53:39Adolf Hitler's actions,
53:41particularly the Holocaust,
53:43shattered any notions
53:45of a scientifically-studied
53:47pure race.
53:49In Ireland, the idea of a pure
53:51Celtic race sort of slipped
53:53away,
53:55as did
53:57Adolf Maher.
53:59In July 1939,
54:01Maher travelled to Germany
54:03for an academic conference
54:05and to attend a Nazi rally
54:07in Nuremberg.
54:09He stayed in Germany. At one point
54:11he made Nazi propaganda radio
54:13programmes targeting British and Irish
54:15audiences, a job that didn't
54:17exactly bolster his reputation.
54:23After the war,
54:25Adolf Maher tried to get back into Ireland
54:27to take up his old job.
54:29He wrote begging letters to everybody he knew,
54:31including this one to Eamon de Valera
54:33in 1947.
54:35It is now well over two years
54:37since the cessation of hostilities,
54:39half the duration of the shooting war,
54:41and I am still here.
54:43I have ever since frantically tried to enlist
54:45the support of the Dublin authorities
54:47in my endeavours to get back to my unfinished work,
54:49which I consider to be the vocation
54:51of my life. So far,
54:53I have met with no success.
54:55I can naturally understand that
54:57my past political sympathies and the general
54:59situation render my case somewhat
55:01delicate, but I beg Your Excellency
55:03to consider also the
55:05extenuating factors. I do not
55:07and I cannot deny that I thought it
55:09my patriotic duty to join the
55:11party, and that I honestly believe
55:13that it stood for the common good of all Europe.
55:15This was an error of judgement,
55:17but it was not in contradiction to the
55:19loyalty and love which I felt
55:21equally for your country, which had given
55:23me hospitality and an honoured
55:25scientific position.
55:27But by this time,
55:29Adolf Maher had become a figure to forget.
55:31No one would touch him,
55:33not least Eamon de Valera.
55:35Maher died in
55:37Germany in 1951.
55:39He was still hoping to get back to Ireland.
55:45Esten Evans spent
55:47the war in Northern Ireland,
55:49teaching at Queen's.
55:51He also wrote popular books about Ireland's
55:53heritage, and eventually helped
55:55found the Ulster Folk Park.
55:57He even did the odd spot of presenting
55:59for the BBC.
56:03This structure is what archaeologists
56:05call a suturen.
56:07One thing I wondered though,
56:09did Esten Evans ever mention Adolf Maher?
56:11So I asked his son,
56:13Alan.
56:15I had known that Maher was a Nazi.
56:17My father noticed Maher's interest
56:19in airfields and coastal regions.
56:23So they had a relationship of sorts?
56:25Yes, and they respected each other
56:27because Maher was a trained archaeologist.
56:29He was about 20 years
56:31older than my father.
56:33But they were both very interested
56:35in developing
56:37the techniques.
56:39But Alan also told me
56:41a story that suggests
56:43that something very different
56:45had Adolf Maher and Adolf Hitler
56:47gotten their way.
56:49Certainly my father was very surprised
56:51when a senior archaeologist in Dublin
56:53told him that Maher had commented
56:55that Esten would make an excellent
56:57gauleiter for a mayor
56:59for Northern Ireland
57:01when the great day came.
57:03But the great day didn't come,
57:05thankfully.
57:07Instead, Esten Evans
57:09had a long and illustrious career
57:11becoming a household name
57:13in Northern Ireland
57:15and he never went back to Wales.
57:17It makes for a strange sort
57:19of Irish story
57:21without any Irish characters.
57:23Adolf Maher,
57:25Esten Evans,
57:27Huoniel Henkin,
57:29Hallam Mowius.
57:31They dug up this island,
57:33excavated a warehouse of
57:35treasures and went some way
57:37to decoding our mysterious
57:39megaliths.
57:41Yet it's a forgotten tale
57:43because it happened in the 1930s,
57:45a dark chapter of history.
57:49But we should remember
57:51they pioneered archaeology
57:53on this island
57:55as we know it today.
58:01But I have to admit,
58:03I'm slightly disappointed
58:05that there's no definitive evidence
58:07of an ancient and pure Celtic culture
58:09from which I might be descended.
58:11Of course, I'm not going to be
58:13swayed by mere science.
58:15No, like most people north and south,
58:17I prefer stories.
58:19Stories rooted in the landscape of the mind.
58:21Because that's where these
58:23comforting origin myths arise.
58:25In the sometimes absurd
58:27and often baffling tales
58:29that we tell ourselves about who we are
58:31and where we came from.