The arrangement of artefacts can serve to visually articulate the power, identity and tradition of the ruling elite, and the creation of archaeological knowledge in the process. This is because ‘all archaeology is interpretation’.82 For as long as it is acceptable to view Ireland’s past as heroic, independent, creative, prehistoric and Celtic, it is acceptable to have items which visualise these concepts on prominent display. This is based on the premise that culture is political and a conduit for change, often reflecting or even foreshadowing political change. The establishing of a unique, utopian culture associated with a defined territorial space is the essence of nationalism. The interpretative process within the museum reflected the shifting paradigm of historical, political and cultural forces outside it.
Collections, exhibitions and individual displays of artefacts cannot be isolated from the larger cultural contexts of national identity formation. Artefacts can be appropriated as symbols of specific group identities which become fixed through the National Museum’s handling of them. In the Western model of national identity, nations were seen as ‘culture communities, whose members were united, if not made homogeneous, by common historical memories, myths, symbols and traditions’.83 The National Museum acted as a mirror of the nation-state with its assumptions of ethnic, linguistic and cultural hegemony, and became a microcosm of the culture community. Trigger explains that the main function of nationalist archaeology is ‘to bolster the pride and morale of nations or ethnic groups’.84 Museums serve as a repository for visual expressions of memory. They act as an aid to remembering an agreed-upon past.85 The National Museum of Ireland became the powerhouse of nationalist archaeology after 1922, the act of appropriation of the past being a political one. Cultural and political nationalism were interwoven and political ideas were embedded in cultural ideology.86 As a cultural tentacle of the independent Irish Free State Government, the National Museum was in the privileged position of being able not only to reflect change but to act as an agent or catalyst for it. The Lithberg Report resulted in the National Museum of Ireland being effectively transformed into a strong state-sponsored visual statement about national aspirations and became an important symbol of the independent state.
American Reconnaissance Trip, 1931
The American academics believed that Ireland played a leading role in the cultural development of Northern and Western Europe. Reasons for choosing the Irish Free State included the ‘extremely meagre’ knowledge of Stone Age peoples and the ‘comparatively ill-known’ archaeology of Ireland.87 The Harvard anthropologist L. Lloyd Warner made the relevant contacts in Ireland to pave the way for the work of the Harvard Mission anthropologists and archaeologists. He directed the work in social anthropology but was also responsible for all three strands in Ireland until the work was complete. In 1931, Hencken and Warner arrived on a reconnaissance trip to determine what sites they would excavate and where they would carry out their anthropological surveys. They also made a second visit. A preliminary survey of the country was carried out to see if the proposed research was practical. They met with Cardinal MacRory, Catholic Primate of all Ireland; Eoin MacNeill and his brother, the Governor-General, James MacNeill (served 1928–32); Professor George O’Brien, Professor of National Economics and Professor of Political Economy at UCD; Séamus Ó Duillearga, then lecturer at University College Dublin and editor of Béaloideas, the journal of the Folklore of Ireland Society; and Adolf Mahr. Hooton noted in his manuscript that all of these people approved of his proposed project and some helped with the preliminary survey.88
In 1931, Mahr was first approached about the Harvard Archaeological Mission and agreed to meet Hencken on 3 July 1931, where Mahr extended ‘a most cordial and enthusiastic welcome’ to him’.89 They spent the day discussing the proposed project and the only difficulty which Mahr foresaw was the attitude of Macalister. Hencken assessed Mahr as ‘a thoroughly up-to-date archaeologist in the very best sense, and, except when he lapses into his feud with Macalister, is a man of the broadest vision’. He believed that the antagonism between Mahr and Macalister was because ‘each feels that by virtue of his position he is State Archaeologist of Saorstát Éireann’.90 It would seem that the Irish Free State Government also wanted to sideline Macalister and place the National Museum at the centre of cultural endeavour. It was Mahr and not Macalister who was commissioned by the state to write a book to coincide with the hosting of the thirty-first International Eucharistic Congress, which took place in Dublin in June 1932.91 However, Hencken was pragmatic enough to remember that the point of view of both Mahr and Macalister had to be respected when dealing with Irish archaeology, as Macalister was Chairman and Mahr Secretary of the Standing Committee of the influential National Monuments Advisory Council (NMAC), established under the National Monuments Act, 1930.
On the morning of 3 July 1931, Macalister came to the National Museum to speak to Hencken. Before their meeting Macalister had a private meeting with Mahr. Mahr later told Hencken that he had tried to persuade Macalister of the benefits of the proposed Harvard Expeditions to Irish archaeology. Afterwards Hencken and Macalister had lunch to discuss the matter. On 7 July 1931 the machiavellian Mahr took advantage of Macalister’s absence from Dublin to hold a meeting in his house between the Standing Committee of the NMAC, Hencken and Warner. Sir Philip Hanson, the Chairman of the Board of Works and Harold J. Leask, the Inspector of National Monuments, were present. Hencken concluded that those assembled were ‘enthusiastic’ about the project. Justice Liam Price suggested that General O’Hara of the Irish Air Force might arrange for some aerial photography. After this meeting Hencken was satisfied that he had all the necessary support of the Irish officials and specially Mahr. Mahr had suggested that the Royal Irish Academy might cooperate with the Harvard expeditions. Macalister was President of the Royal Irish Academy at that time and Hencken was hopeful that he might be persuaded.92
Hencken stressed to Macalister at their meeting that Harvard did not have a special interest in forming an Irish archaeological collection and only wanted a representative sample of material. He also emphasised that they would not interfere in sites that Irish archaeologists were planning to dig. As Hencken knew that Macalister had planned to dig both Newgrange and Tara, these would not be included in Harvard’s programme. At the end of the lunch Hencken felt that Macalister ‘was prepared to help rather than to hinder’. When Mahr was informed about their successful meeting he replied that ‘we could then be assured of a license to dig anywhere except at Tara and New Grange in twenty-four hours’.93
It was suggested in a Hooton manuscript that the Irish authorities were most anxious that copper mines in the south of Ireland be excavated by the Harvard Mission.94 These included six early mine shafts for copper working at Derrycarhoon, County Cork and others in Killarney, County Kerry. Grooved hammers dating to the Bronze Age had been found at Killarney. As Irish copper was important on the continent during the Early Bronze Age, these sites, which had never been excavated, might reveal very important information about metal-working. It was Hooton’s view that one of the mining sites in the south should be excavated as soon as possible because ‘this is an undertaking that Macalister, Mahr, and indeed every other British archaeologist would welcome with enthusiasm’.95 However, Hencken and his team did not act on Hooton’s suggestions.
During the 1931 trip, attempts were made to find a county which would fit the criteria of the social and anthropological requirements of the Harvard Mission while also being suitable from an archaeological point of view. The counties which were of immediate interest to Hencken were counties Clare, Sligo and Antrim. Hencken considered these counties and Co. Meath to have the best and greatest variety of archaeological sites suitable for excavation.96 Hencken was also very interested in Rathcroghan, in County Roscommon, the seat of Ailill and Maeve, which he believed to have been occupied in the first centuries of the Christian era. Hencken considered Meath an unsuitable county from the point of view of a social and anthropological survey but did not explain the reasons for this view in his report. In any event he considered Tara to be ‘a labor far beyond the scope of the expedition at present contemplated, and Meath without Tara would be unsatisfactory’.97 In his report Hencken noted that Mahr placed particular emphasis on County Sligo being the ‘best single archaeological area in the Free State’.98
When Hencken and his team arrived in Ireland in 1931 the site selection process would have been very difficult without the assistance of amateur archaeologists.