Upcoming Events

Meath | Miscellaneous

no events match your query!

New Events

Meath

no events posted in last week

Blog Feeds

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland
A Blog About Human Rights

offsite link UN human rights chief calls for priority action ahead of climate summit Sat Oct 30, 2021 17:18 | Human Rights

offsite link 5 Year Anniversary Of Kem Ley?s Death Sun Jul 11, 2021 12:34 | Human Rights

offsite link Poor Living Conditions for Migrants in Southern Italy Mon Jan 18, 2021 10:14 | Human Rights

offsite link Right to Water Mon Aug 03, 2020 19:13 | Human Rights

offsite link Human Rights Fri Mar 20, 2020 16:33 | Human Rights

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link News Round-Up Fri Mar 29, 2024 00:04 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the virus and the vaccines, the ?climate emergency? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Women?s Team with Five Male Players Wins Football Competition After One Male Player ?Broke Opponent?... Thu Mar 28, 2024 19:30 | Will Jones
A women?s football competition has been branded misogynist after it was won by a team featuring five transgender players, amid accusations one had broken an opponent?s leg in two places.
The post Women’s Team with Five Male Players Wins Football Competition After One Male Player “Broke Opponent’s Leg” ? But Teams Who Refuse to Play Against Them Are Branded “Discriminatory” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Further Evidence Gaza Casualty Numbers Are Fake Thu Mar 28, 2024 17:36 | Will Jones
The evidence that the Gaza casualty numbers from the Hamas-run Health Ministry (now over 32,000) are wildly inflated continues to mount. Mark Zlochin looks at what the proportions of male and female UNRWA workers tell us.
The post Further Evidence Gaza Casualty Numbers Are Fake appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Don?t Be Fooled by the ?Britain is Growing? Fairytales Thu Mar 28, 2024 15:22 | David Craig
Don't be fooled by the 'Britain is growing' fairytales, says David Craig. Any 'growth' is accounted for by the hike in the benefits bill and in civil servants' pay and a heap of other unproductive deficit spending.
The post Don’t Be Fooled by the ‘Britain is Growing’ Fairytales appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Climate: The Movie is a Perfect Cure for Climate Anxiety Thu Mar 28, 2024 13:00 | Toby Young
Climate Change: The Movie, the new film by Martin Durkin, should be shown at every school in the country to disabuse anxious young people of the idea that we're in the midst of a 'climate emergency'.
The post Climate: The Movie is a Perfect Cure for Climate Anxiety appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Moscow attack reminds us of the links between Islamists and Kiev's fundamentalis... Tue Mar 26, 2024 06:57 | en

offsite link Failure to assist a people in danger of genocide, by Hassan Hamadé Tue Mar 26, 2024 06:32 | en

offsite link Yugoslavia March 24, 1999 The Founding War of the New Nato, by Manlio Dinucci Sun Mar 24, 2024 05:15 | en

offsite link France opposes Russian Korean-style peace project in Ukraine Sat Mar 23, 2024 11:11 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N°79 Fri Mar 22, 2024 11:40 | en

Voltaire Network >>

Tara & the British Israelites

category meath | miscellaneous | opinion/analysis author Thursday July 28, 2005 13:19author by Info Report this post to the editors

Republicans as the modern day defenders of Tara

Christmas Day 1900 and across the Hill of Tara in Co Meath, a man and a woman may be seen walking, a sense of purpose influencing their actions. Flamboyant nationalist Maud Gonne in the company of Arthur Griffith, editor of the United Irishman and future co-founder of Sinn Féin, are inspecting recent damage done to the ancient monument site.

The Ark at the seat of kings

A new book recalls how an obscure group dug up the Hill of Tara in search of the Ark of the Covenant, writes Eileen Battersby.

Christmas Day 1900 and across the Hill of Tara in Co Meath, a man and a woman may be seen walking, a sense of purpose influencing their actions. Flamboyant nationalist Maud Gonne in the company of Arthur Griffith, editor of the United Irishman and future co-founder of Sinn Féin, are inspecting recent damage done to the ancient monument site.

Random vandalism was not the issue. The culprits, members of the British-Israel Association of London, could instead claim a far more serious, if bizarre motivation, their quest concerning the legendary Ark of the Covenant.

Founded by Edward Wheeler Bird, a retired Anglo-Indian judge, the organisation became the unified mouthpiece of all sections of the British-Israel movement which believed that the Anglo-Saxon race was descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel, the wandering biblical Hebrews. It held many theories, most of which were wonderfully colourful, even logical in a mad sort of way.

Central to them all however, was an underlying conviction in the British right to rule the world. Implicit amid the theorising was extensive rhetoric proclaiming white supremacy and the usual racial megalomania embraced by any chosen people.

So how does royal Tara, the ancient seat of the High Kings of Ireland fit into this? The British-Israelites, driven essentially by intellectual beliefs, decided the Ark of the Covenant had been buried at Tara and must be retrieved .

It is a great story and well told by Mairéad Carew in Tara and the Ark of the Covenant, published by The Royal Irish Academy. An impressive cast list includes W.B. Yeats, Douglas Hyde, Gonne, Griffith and leading Irish archaeologists such as R.A.S. Macalister, George Coffey and Thomas J Westropp.

There is also the dastardly landlord, Gustavus Villiers Briscoe, who, having been bought by the organisation, sat by heartlessly drinking whiskey as the zealots began their crazy "excavations". There is also an outraged letter to the London Times, signed by a formidable trio: Hyde, Yeats and George Moore.

Nor should history overlook Maud Gonne's clever hijacking of Briscoe's elaborate bonfire planned to celebrate the coronation of Edward VII. Having organised an excursion to Tara for 300 children on the same day, July 13th 1902, Gonne looked at the bonfire and "felt it would serve a better purpose if burnt in honour of an independent Ireland". She lit it and sang A Nation Once Again. Briscoe and the local police were outraged.

Carew examines the story of Tara and the Ark in a lively narrative of meticulous detail and subtle humour. While the archaeological journals of the day gave the episode little space, the newspapers ran with it. According to Carew: "It was the first time that the Irish media had been involved in a campaign to protect a national monument."

But it was far more complicated than that because of the then changing attitudes towards Irish archaeology.

By the close of the 19th century, traditional gentleman Irish antiquarianism had yielded to an increasingly scientific approach. The cultural revival was in full flow. The clash between the British-Israelites and the cultural nationalists at Tara also represented colonialism versus emergent nationalism with their contrasting grasp of symbolism.

While the British-Israelites saw Tara as "a powerfully symbolic site, their 'resuscitated' Jerusalem, and spiritual capital of the British Empire", the cultural nationalists saw the place as a potential capital of an independent Ireland, and both sides drew on archaeology, history and mythology in making their cases.

Although the first approaches regarding possible explorations at Tara were made by the British Israelites in November 1875, all action was confined to a period spanning 1899 to 1902. Considering the amount of devastation subsequently inflicted on Ireland's archaeological heritage in the name of development throughout the 20th century, it is heartening to note the active opposition to excavating Tara.

Among the many interesting quotations used throughout is one attributed to William Bulfin (1864-1910) who travelled Ireland by bicycle and recorded his experiences. A close friend of Arthur Griffith, Bulfin was a shrewd commentator and observed the antics at Tara, not only of the Ark hunters, but also noted the government's evasive side-stepping. He was aware that fear of an exasperated public had been a factor in officialdom taking action but the true heroes were men such as Griffith, Hyde and Yeats and the professional archaeologists.

Of those responsible for the damage at Tara, Bulfin wrote: "Men have been sent to prison for less. But in Ireland there is no plank bed and hard tack for such offenders. They sleep upon the safest mattresses in the country and feed on the fat of the land." Considering he did not have the benefit of planning tribunal revelations to draw upon, his perceptions are impressive.

Elsewhere Macalister, himself a Freemason, writing of the episode years later in his book, Tara: A Pagan Sanctuary of Ancient Ireland (1931), dismissed the British-Israelite theory as "so utterly removed from normal sanity, that piety rather than ridicule should be accorded to those who have been infected with it". On the surface the incident offers yet another tussle between the Irish and the English. Yet there are stranger aspects involved. "The concept of Tara as the centre of a spiritual, religious or cultural conquest of the world is a recurring theme in British-Israelite literature. As Tara was regarded by them as an ancient royal site in the British Empire, the deposition of the Ark there would be evidence that Tara was indeed the spiritual birthplace of the Anglo-Saxon nation." This, the same Tara of which William Wilde wrote: "the memories of Tara have remained a silver thread in the garment of sackcloth he [the Irishman\] has worn for centuries". The same Tara described by Hyde, Yeats and Moore as "probably the most consecrated spot in Ireland".

And lest one decide that the entire folly was confined to the English, the British-Israel Association of Ireland was founded, on March 17th, 1897, in the Leinster Lecture Hall, Molesworth St, Dublin. Freemasonry provides another strand to the tale particularly as the Ark was the common symbol for the British-Israelites and Freemasons. If the core of British-Israelite beliefs were based on Protestantism, Freemasonry was, and remains, interdenominational.

Theories and campaigns, subplots and contexts, it is a tale of cultural agendas. Carew evokes the notions of romance and patriotism that dictated the Irish response to the visitors. History and myth as well as all shades of politics have their say as do the cross references such as the influence the 18th century antiquarian Charles Vallancey's shaky ideas exerted over the British-Israelites.

There are also the tensions felt by loyalist Protestants when faced with fellow Protestants embracing cultural nationalism. Carew quotes playwright and Abbey co-founder Edward Martyn, as seeing Freemasonry as a social advancement used by Protestants "whilst we Catholics are correspondingly handicapped by the lack of any organisation capable of doing for us what Freemasonry does for the Protestants". Daniel O'Connell was a Freemason; even so misconceptions, such as Martyn's, endured. It should be conceded, however, that Catholics could not become British-Israelites as it was rooted in Protestantism.

Whatever about the comedy, the arrival of the British-Israelites at Tara was multifaceted. Today the site remains much as it was then, a series of earthworks and mounds. Tara relies on its rich literature and associations.

It clearly captured the imagination of Maud Gonne who experienced so vivid a vision there, she fell to her knees, and reported in an article published less than a fortnight after the visit with Griffith: "I seemed to see shuddering, misty forms gazing curiously at us. A weird procession wound round the great raths where the palaces had stood. Some tossed white arms as they moved in rhythmic circles..." Her companion saw nothing.

While the British-Israelites dreamt of finding the Ark of the Covenant, patriotic Irish poets and writers battled to save a national monument. Many shades of opinion met and fought over the Hill of Tara, as symbol and as fact. However wacky it all seems in hindsight, it is a serious and important, though eccentric, interlude. It is all brought vividly to life here through Carew's intelligent, subtle and nuanced account.

Tara and the Ark of the Covenant by Mairéad Carew is published by the Royal Irish Academy, €30

IT Report

author by watcherpublication date Thu Jul 28, 2005 13:23author address author phone Report this post to the editors

'Nor should history overlook Maud Gonne's clever hijacking of Briscoe's elaborate bonfire planned to celebrate the coronation of Edward VII. Having organised an excursion to Tara for 300 children on the same day, July 13th 1902, Gonne looked at the bonfire and "felt it would serve a better purpose if burnt in honour of an independent Ireland". She lit it and sang A Nation Once Again. Briscoe and the local police were outraged.'

They'd be in jail with the Rossport 5 now a days..

author by Tara Tara Tarapublication date Thu Dec 04, 2008 19:14author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Hi,

I found this page while googling the British Israelites after my interest was tweaked again by last nights documentary, Teamhair , on TG4. It was fabulous and I will be getting your book!

Mound of the Hostages
Mound of the Hostages

Related Link: http://www.itison.net
author by Tara Tara Tarapublication date Fri Dec 05, 2008 13:00author address author phone Report this post to the editors

For anyone who missed the Documenatry the first time 'round, TG4 are repeating it on Tuesday 9th Dec at 11.30pm. Highly recommended.

Related Link: http://www.itison.net
author by Maerton H. Davis - Nonepublication date Mon Dec 08, 2008 10:08author email maertondavis at gmail dot comauthor address Kfar Vradim, Hermon 68 Israel 25147author phone 972525111893Report this post to the editors

During my research for my own book on Irish and Jewish connections, I have come across proof that would suggest that most of the early Irish were in fact Hebraic and later Jewish. Tara meaning "Law" has been misread as being a possible place of hiding on the Tablet containing the "Ten sayings" or commandments as they are called by the secular world.
It is well known that Tara was the seat of Kings and laws were dispensed from there. It is also known that the early Brehon laws were derived from Jewish sources based on the Gemorrah and Mishnaic texts. Note that there were very few cases in Brehon law where the taking of a life was permitted to exact justice, just like in ancient Jewish law and the laws pertaining to compensation are the same.
It is not hard to imagine therefore that certain people may have been lead to believe that the Stone tablet containg the sayings were brought and buried there, just as many believe that miracles are performed by humans.

 
© 2001-2024 Independent Media Centre Ireland. Unless otherwise stated by the author, all content is free for non-commercial reuse, reprint, and rebroadcast, on the net and elsewhere. Opinions are those of the contributors and are not necessarily endorsed by Independent Media Centre Ireland. Disclaimer | Privacy