Discovery of forgotten relics reads like plot from Indiana Jones film
Priceless gold lunula and sun discs stolen from pharmacist's safe and dumped in rubbish bins
IN the late 1950s in rural Ireland, pure gold necklaces were not the kind of thing to be slapped up for inspection on frugal kitchen tables of the era.
Sunniva Sheehan can recall clearly the day her father told her he had something to show her. She was sitting in the kitchen at home in Strokestown, Co Roscommon, probably with her mother, when her father disappeared to the safe he kept for the family's pharmacy business.
He returned with an envelope, on which was written in his careful handwriting 'collar and two buttons' and the date, March 22, 1947. Out came a staggering pre-Christian-era gold collar and two gold discs.
'It probably came up from the bog,' he told her, before returning it to its paper sheath. His daughter doesn't recall being too impressed.
'It didn't mean a whole lot to me -- it was a flat piece of gold and I didn't think anything of it. It wasn't something you could wear or make use of,' said Ms Sheehan.
'It didn't excite me in any way because in those days, no one had tuppence to rub together, so we had no jewellery of any sort at that stage.'
Her father offered no explanation as to where the treasures came from. He returned them to the safe where they remained locked away for the next 50 years.
The gold artifacts were largely forgotten about until a fortnight ago, when burglars stole the safe and unwittingly came upon the most priceless loot they could have wished for. But unaware of their value, they threw the artefacts in a dustbin in suburban Dublin.
In a plot almost worthy of Indiana Jones, they were rescued from almost certain oblivion, following a breathless, 11th-hour race against the clock by gardai.
The 'collar and buttons', as Ms Sheehan knew them, were, in fact, a gold lunula and two gold sun discs -- precious Bronze Age jewels worn for ceremonial occasions more than 4,000 years ago. It is thought that fewer than 200 were made by master craftsmen and fewer still have survived.
One found in Rossmore Park in Monaghan in 1930 is in the National Museum. Others were secreted out of the country. A collection of Bronze Age Celtic golf collars turned up at a Sotheby's auction in 1990, including a lunula similar to the one in the Sheehans' safe, which was then valued at up to stg?20,000. Charles Haughey, then Taoiseach, famously got them back to Ireland after paying an undisclosed sum.
The Strokestown lunula and gold discs were delivered to the National Museum last Thursday under garda escort and the hoard has been heralded by the director, Dr Pat Wallace, as a 'very important discovery'. In return, Ms Sheehan requested a donation by the museum to the Garda Benevolent Fund.
The mystery now obsessing archaeologists is how these artefacts came to languish in the safe of a Midlands pharmacist in the first place?
Ms Sheehan is as mystified as everyone else. In fact, she said, for a man so keen on knowledge and history they were 'amazed' that her father didn't tell them more about these artefacts.
Originally from Rathdrum, Co Wicklow, Paddy Sheehan qualified as a pharmacist before moving first to Ballina, Co Mayo, and then to Strokestown in 1934, where he opened his own business.
His arrival in Strokestown caused quite a stir, according to Ms Sheehan. He cut a dash with a red Triumph sports car and cups he had won for motor rallying.
'He was a man that was very into education. There were seven of us in the family and he spent all he had on education. We were sent to every known class that ever was -- it didn't matter whether it was knitting or sewing or cooking or whatever.
'In fact, we were the first family in the place to see the Sputnik because he used to listen to Radio Moscow at night, and Vatican City and Voice of America. He knew about the Sputnik before it went up. And we were all taken out of bed one night and brought down to the local dump to see the Sputnik on the first night it crossed the sky.'
Somewhere along the line, he came across this lunula and two brass discs, which he inserted in an envelope and dated March 22, 1947 -- possibly the date on which he acquired it -- and stored it in the safe alongside such personal valuables as the deeds to the house and the receipt for its purchase.
The artefacts were brought out once after Paddy Sheehan's death in 1967, when Sunniva showed them to her sister. Time passed and they were forgotten.
'I think everyone finds it hard to believe we forgot about it. When my father died, the business was nearly non-existent because he had been in bad health,' said Ms Sheehan. 'When he died, I had a mother to support and six sisters younger than me. So it was hard keeping things together, never mind thinking about a gold necklace in the safe.'
She didn't think about them again until one Friday a fortnight ago, when gardai told her that the pharmacy had been burgled and the safe stolen. Asked what was in it, Ms Sheehan listed the cosmetics, perfumes and personal documents. Later, her sister phoned and asked about the necklace.
'I said what necklace? She said the gold necklace,' said Ms Sheehan. 'It was only then it struck me that evening to tell them about it.'
The National Museum gave advice as to what it might look like. Within days, Eamonn Kelly, the museum's keeper of antiquities, and a colleague were in Strokestown asking Ms Sheehan if she could identify the artefacts from images they showed her.
Realising that a national relic was languishing forgotten in her safe for years 'nearly gave me a heart attack', she said.
The investigation gathered fresh momentum. Detectives already suspected that the stolen loot had been brought back to Dublin. Within days, they had raided a house in Finglas and an apartment in Kilmainham. The safe was recovered in the canal. Detectives discovered that most of its contents -- useless to the burglars -- had been dumped in the refuse in the private apartment complex.
This discovery was made late on Wednesday night. Gardai faced the unpleasant prospect of rummaging through about 20 wheelie bins and didn't know where to start. The rubbish was due to be collected within a matter of hours. There was nothing for it, gardai had to seize the lot. Residents of the plush apartment block awoke to find instead of empty refuse bins, no bins at all. They had been brought back to Kilmainham Garda Station in a skip.
A detective team from Roscommon was dispatched to Dublin to begin the undesirable task of forensically combing through the rotting rubbish. The hero of the tale was Sergeant John Costello, who donned protective clothing and waded bravely into the stinking detritus. Hours into his search, he found an envelope and inside found the gleaming lunula and two gold sun discs, literally the jewels in the dung heap.
'It was spotlessly clean, it was glowing it was so bright,' said Det Gda Noel Galvin. 'If we had missed that then the contents of the bins would have gone to the main dump. It would be another thousand years before the collar was found again.'
