The Bill is a start in our effort to protect national monuments, archaeological objects or sunken treasure around our coasts but what is needed is a more embracing piece of legislation that will encompass the many different aspects of our national heritage. Such legislation should not be confined to our national monuments. However, I welcome the legislation in the spirit in which it has been presented by the Minister. I suggest that it is worth considering a broader view such as the establishment of trusts to allocate resources to protect historical buildings and monuments. That would go a long way to help protect some of the finest of our historical buildings, particularly those in the capital city, from falling into decay. One could cite many examples of historical buildings such as the George Bernard Shaw house in Synge Street, the Gogarty home and the Sean O'Casey home. Many of those buildings are falling into rack and ruin primarily because they are outside the ambit of preserved buildings. The Minister should consider widening the scope of the Bill to embrace those buildings which are a part of our national heritage.
Legislation like this should regularise the activities of our city and provincial museums and safeguard treasures in our national and provincial galleries and in our libraries. The Minister should give some attention to our historic buildings. Such a move would be well received by those who are endeavouring to preserve those buildings on a voluntary basis. I advocated the establishment of a community watch over national monuments. I consider this an important way to safeguard national monuments in isolated areas. Those living close to those monuments should be encouraged to watch over them.
I note with satisfaction that some counties have compiled inventories of treasures in their locality. That is vitally important particularly if we are to prevent people taking away some of our treasures such as grave tablets or hacking artefacts from monastery walls. We must prevent that type of pillage and for that reason it is important that local communities get involved in protecting our monuments in co-operation with the gardaí and, if necessary, the Army. The Garda should have an inventory of artefacts and monuments. They should have photographs of all objects of national importance because a photograph is the best way to identify treasure.
A community watch system would not cost the State any money because many people are willing to engage in it. It could be similar to the neighbourhood watch scheme which has proved such a success. It is important to realise that we are not talking about huge investments or wondering where the money would come from. People in the community would be proud to come together and identify what they have in their streets or the environs of their community and to put these items under closer security in GAA establishments, the Macra organisation or whatever.
I want to give an example of what can happen due to vandalism and greed. One speaker referred to the Carrowntemple monastic site in County Sligo which is unique and irreplacable. The year before last the State withdrew a legal action in which a German national was appealing a District Court conviction relating to the theft of some carvings from Clonmacnoise. Three of those carvings have never been recovered. It is abominable that such priceless treasures were stolen by some ruthless person either to sell or to hoard, interfering with this magnificant monastery at Clonmacnoise. John Armstrong, writing in The Irish Times on 25 October 1986, referred to stolen carvings ripped from the wall at the 7th century monastic site at Inishcaltra on Lough Derg. The report stated:
The carving — of an interlaced cross inset with abstract designs was ripped from steel brackets embedded in stone wall.
A spokesman for the Board of Works said yesterday they were "absolutely dismayed by this latest outrage". He added: "We will obviously have to re-examine our whole policy of leaving historic monuments in their natural environment in the light of this and other recent developments".
The report continues:
The director of the national Museum, Dr. Brendan O'Riordan, said yesterday he was "horrified" by the theft, and he appealed to people in the area to report any suspicious traffic between Lough Derg and the mainland to the gardaí.
"This kind of vandalism has become a serious threat to parts of our national heritage. The best defence against it is the vigilance of local people," he said.
That is the very point I am making about community watch and I urge the Minister to put all his energies into it. No matter what legislation we pass, these types of incidents will continue unless there is co-operation between the public, the Garda and the Army to watch over these irreplacable treasures.
Inishcaltra is one of the most important early christian sites in County Clare, containing the ruins of five churches, the earliest dating from the 7th century, and a round tower. Brian Boru is said to have built one of the churches and the site was abandoned during the 14th or 15th centuries. It later became a place of pilgrimage. Liam de Paor, an eminent man in archaeological matters who excavated the site in the seventies, is quoted as saying that it is now virtually impossible to safeguard monuments left in places where they had been perfectly safe for hundreds of years. We must face up to what is happening and take practical steps rather than think only in terms of passing legislation.
If items of this kind are stolen, invariably they are exported for sale on the British, Continental or American market. This type of thing happens all the time. The Minister might use his office to communicate with the principal British dealers, Christies and Sothebys, and ask them to keep a very close watch for anything of this nature. Certainly this is done in a more sophisticated manner in the art world with regard to precious paintings and so on. It is very difficult to pinpoint exactly what is happening in relation to archaeological treasures, in which this country is so rich. Perhaps the Minister's office could establish some kind of alert system between the art galleries so that anything that turns up on the market can be quickly pinpointed.
An example should be made of somebody who engages in this type of activity. I am not speaking about the uncontroled use of metal detectors but someone who rips the side of a monastery wall, steals treasures and sells them abroad. That is a terrible crime and should be used as an example in our courts so that other people will be very slow to engage in activity of that kind.
My second point relates to the active involvement of archaeologists. I referred to the dusty image the discipline of archaeology had, but we are moving towards a completely new attitude to archaeology. New scientific techniques are being used. There are very advanced systems of dating and x-ray photography. We have a developing team of young archaeologists who are willing and eager to get involved in the huge area of preservation of our national heritage.
At this point it would be fitting to pay tribute to the recent appointment to the Seanad of Professor George Eogan of UCD. He holds the chair of archaeology there and is a very eminent professor who has worked extensively on the digs at Knowth and Dowth and produced many learned papers on our twilight past and the marvellous gold industry which flourished in Ireland. He has involved himself in a more updated approach to projecting archaeology to interest the populace and get away from the archaic image that the discipline had. I offer my congratulations to Professor Eogan on his appointment to the Seanad.
I would briefly refer to the fact that our capital city has no city archaeologist; neither has Cork or Galway. The Minister should take this opportunity to appoint archaeologists for our principal regions, perhaps the four provinces to start off with and also Dublin. These appointments could be made by restructuring staff readily available. This would go a long way to regularising the position. People who engage in stealing treasures realise that effectively there are no controls.
I would like the Minister to consider introducing the subject of archaeology as part of our curriculum at secondary level education and including it as part of the training of the Garda and the Army who have a prominent role to play here. The Minister was the spokesman on Defence and he could have an input into this. An understanding and knowledge of our raths and monuments, not necessarily just by experts, would lead to the preservation of many of these great things and would deter JCBs from ploughing up fields and so on. Here a sensitive appraoch is needed. Ireland is unique in that it had universities before Oxford and Cambridge were thought of. Monasterboice and Clonmacnoise were great seats of learning with wonderful books, shrines and chalices.
Let me refer for a moment to the question of treasure found in Ireland. A greater awareness of this subject should percolate through the schools and to the community generally. A recent example is the finding of the Derrynaflan chalice. The very strange decision that came out of the High Court gave the father and son who found this chalice the option of keeping it or taking its value. I never cease to be amazed at some of the decisions that come out of the courts, probably because I have not a sophisticated appreciation of things legal, but it strikes me as bizarre, to say the least, that somebody can come with a metal detector onto the grounds of a national monument or invade private property, unearth from that monument or property a priceless treasure — £5.5 million was the value placed on that chalice although I would regard it as priceless — and literally walk away with it. I am sure that the Minister finds that bewildering.
Suppose somebody comes along to Leinster Lawn with a metal detector, gets to work with it and unearths a few treasures, can that person walk out the gates with that treasure and later claim that he owns it? If not successfully challenged in the Supreme Court this will open the floodgates to all sorts of strange things and people will be able to go into the back gardens or fields of others and wrongfully claim treasure of that kind. According to this morning's The Irish Times the State is very anxious to have an appeal on this matter within, say, 14 days.
The ownership of the Derrynaflan chalice is a grey area. Let me suggest that that chalice once belonged to the churches. Anyone who is familiar with Irish history of the period when monasteries were being razed to the ground and monks, abbots, priests and vicars were being chased from their monasteries and had to bury hurriedly some of the treasure that has been found in the ground, in my humble opinion would hold that this hoard, the Derrynaflan chalice and paten, belonged to the principal churches of the time, the Catholic Church, the Church of Ireland and the Presbyterian Church. If the three churches in question came together, claimed ownership of this chalice and donated the chalice to the State, a very strong case could be made for settling the matter in that way. Certainly it appears to me from reading the history of that time that artefacts of that nature belonged to the churches. Trinity College Library and the Library at Maynooth University house priceless treasures of books that belonged to the churches at that time and later to the State. Therefore, something similar could be done in that area.
There is some disquiet about the possibility that some of our artefacts have been copied and facsimiles and so on have been made. The Treasures of Ireland Exhibition went on tour in America and included the Cross of Cong, the Ardagh Chalice, Saint Patrick's Bell and items of gold, and the exhibition projected abroad a superb image of Ireland. Anyone who went to the National Museum and saw the exhibition there would agree that we can be enormously proud of it. One can imagine that when it went to a country like America which has such a thin background of history the people there must have been in awe at the splendour of the history of 6,000 or 7,000 years of this country.
I worry about reports that abound with regard to the Ardagh Chalice. A person who is engaged in researching this area is expressing suspicion and that a copy was made of that chalice and that this copy is in a university in America. A question must immediately arise as to where the original chalice is. Is it in our museum or in America? I do not want to raise any sensationalism by referring to that case, but it is being investigated. I would like the assurance of the National Museum, who are so desperately stretched in their resources in coping with the amount of treasure that comes to them, that no facsimiles or copies have been made of our principal treasures. If the information is available to the Minister I ask him to tell me in his reply if any copies have been made of our treasures for sale or for whatever purpose.
Regarding reward for treasure, it is important that people who are enthusiastic and conscientious about preserving our heritage should receive ample reward or the market price for a treasure found and brought along to a museum, and that such people are not given some derisory figure which provides no incentive to them to at least bring to the museum items they have found which could be of interest to the State. The museum is very fortunate in that it acquired many of its treasures, monuments and archaeological finds and hoards in the last century, thanks to the great work of those pioneers to which the Minister referred in his initial address. A reasonable reward should be given to the people who bring items to the museum. If it is a question that the museum are rich enough in their examples of certain artefacts, no harm is done and they need not take these items. They might well suggest that the items be retained in private collections. If there are unique items not extant in the museum's collection, I suggest that a fair reward should be given to people who are prepared to come along and involve themselves.
Sunken treasure around our coasts is a very exciting area. It has recently been referred to in the daily newspapers in connection with the sunken treasure off the Wicklow coast. This opens up a new and difficult area in preservation in maritime history. I know that the Minister has a personal interest in familiarising himself in this area to try to provide some catalogue of maritime history around our coasts. One of the great problems is that if information is given out too prematurely, people are only too willing to take away or interfere with history of that kind. That is a shame. Being an island nation, there is a lot of history of that kind on the sea bed and not in very deep water. An example of that only two years ago was the treasure identified off the Sligo coast.
Maritime archaeology is a very costly operation. As the Minister has an interest, I would suggest that he might contemplate going down and seeing some of the treasure himself. I am sure that would instil a lot of interest in that area and prompt a new awakening. I do not for a moment suggest that the Minister take a dive down in a scuba suit, but there is equipment available for examining under-water treasure and the Minister could involve himself in that way. This is an enormous aspect of our history. These wrecks are monuments of battles or of archaeological treasure that was being taken away from the country when the country was at war at different times over the centuries.
The establishment of the historic monuments museum is to be welcomed provided it has the best of input from experts who are willing to give their time. It also must involve the public. We must involve our archaeologists and our people in identifying with their national heritage and all of our treasure. It is very important that we cannot put a price on the wealth of treasure we have here but I suppose we could wipe out the national debt in one fell swoop if that treasure was to be sold on the international market.
This is an opportunity to engage in a vigorous campaign to do something about our treasure but it will not succeed unless the public are involved. There is no other way forward. We will have people greedily stealing unless they are being watched. If an example is made of them in the courts, and they are held up to the nation, that will be a deterrent, because we all feel that these items belong to us. Who, for instance, does not feel that the Ardagh Chalice or the Book of Kells do not belong to us? People are proud when they bring tourist friends to look at those great treasures. Yet, they cannot be protected by the authorities alone. I realise that I am labouring that point, but I am labouring it on the success of the neighbourhood watch scheme which has worked with tremendous effect in Dublin. I am confident that it will succeed and I would appreciate the Minister attaching some merit to some of the suggestions I have made. I welcome the Bill in its present form.
