Stolen remains of 13 Inishbofin residents that were taken 133 years ago today are being reinterred on the island this afternoon.
Anthropologist Alfred Haddon and his colleague Andrew Dixon removed the skulls in 1890, and the remains were brought to Trinity College in Dublin where they were put on display and in storage ever since.
After a long campaign for their return from the islanders, the institution agreed to hand back the remains this year.
They were received by a group of residents last Wednesday, and were placed in a coffin and sent to Galway.
Yesterday evening, according to RTÉ, the remains were taken back to Inishbofin and brought to St Colman’s Church where they reposed overnight.
The remains were interred following a funeral mass that took place at 1:00pm this afternoon.
A burial plot had been prepared by islanders for the coffin in the shadow of the ruins of an old church from where they were taken on July 16 1890.
RTÉ report that the remains are thought to date from the mid 16th to mid 17th centuries, with the oldest dating back to around the year 1550.
(pic: www.inishbofin.com)
