Ireland's Treasures Uncovered

Ireland's museums are rich with treasure.

Precious artefacts that connect this land to its ancient past.

Some are iconic, others overlooked.

But each one has a story to tell and a unique place in Irish history.

In this programme,

we'll explore the forgotten riches, remarkable discoveries

and surprising tales behind this island's most precious artefacts.

And we'll reveal how ancient treasures continue to shed new light

on the story of Ireland, north and south.

To tell this story, we've asked leading experts

to champion the treasures they feel are the most exceptional.

This scroll is unique in medieval Europe,

there's nothing like this anywhere else.

Treasures integral to Ireland's story.

They still bear the physical impression

of King William's own hands.

This book is the earliest surviving manuscript,

written entirely in the Irish language.

And treasures that astound us.

They weren't noticed by the robbers

because they're extremely flat, they're extremely light.

These are the undiscovered tales and astonishing stories

behind Ireland's greatest treasures.

Dr Gavin Hughes and I have been given full access

to the island's two largest museums -

the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin,

and here, the Ulster Museum in Belfast.

-Here we come over to the Bronze Age.

-Look at this gold, that's wonderful.

I quite like the battle axes but that's just me.

Using this incredible collection,

we are about to uncover the stories

behind Ireland's best-loved artefacts.

And we begin with this island's most celebrated treasure.

Jewellery from medieval Ireland,

that would shape history in modern Ireland.

No country in the world

is as closely associated with the Celts as Ireland is.

But that wasn't always the case.

And there's one iconic treasure that helps to tell the story of how,

in the 19th century, Ireland put the Celts

at the heart of their national story.

That treasure is the Tara Brooch.

The brooch is on permanent display at the National Museum of Ireland,

under the watchful eye of museum director, Dr Raghnall O Floinn.

The Tara Brooch is probably the single greatest treasure

in metalwork that survives in Ireland.

It is effectively the equivalent in metalwork of the Book of Kells.

It was exceptional in the early 8th century,

when it was made, and remains an exceptional piece today.

Modern jewellers are still confounded

by some of the techniques used in its manufacture.

Even the name, the Tara Brooch, has a majestic feel,

conjuring a bygone Ireland of ancient kings,

ruling from the island's most famous royal site, the Hill of Tara.

But these are only romantic connections, not based on fact.

The Tara Brooch, in fact,

is nothing whatsoever to do with the Hill of Tara,

the reputed seat of the High Kings of Ireland.

It was actually found some miles away

at the coastal site of Bettystown, County Meath.

Soon after it was found in 1850,

the brooch was sold to Dublin jeweller George Waterhouse,

who saw its commercial potential.

Replicas were advertised as "The Tara Brooch,"

for its regal status,

both in Ireland and for a much larger market in England.

He presented the brooch to Queen Victoria,

within a couple of weeks of him acquiring it.

He then marketed the brooch under the title,

the Royal Antique Irish Brooch.

So it was doubly associated both with the High Kings of Ireland

and with Queen Victoria.

The Tara Brooch had become a fashion symbol.

And by the turn of the century, adverts were in every newspaper.

Even in theatre brochures for plays by WB Yeats.

But the significance of the Tara Brooch was changing.

As Irish nationalism rose, this treasure rose with it,

becoming a symbol of resistance.

During the Easter Rising,

it was literally a badge for certain rebel groups.

So, here you have this brooch,

on the cusp of the changeover

from the fashionable 19th-century wearing

of archaeological jewellery,

the rediscovery of an Irish national costume,

and moving into the political nationalist arena

in the early 20th century.

The Tara Brooch was at the centre of a Celtic revival.

Whether as a fashion item endorsed by the Queen,

then replicated for the mass market, or as a symbol of Irish rebellion,

this brooch has always been linked to a Celtic past,

used to create a distinct Irish identity.

I think the idea of Celtic identity is probably much stronger now

-than it ever has been.

-As proved by the Celtic revival.

It's almost like a renewal of identity on a perceived past.

And largely through the prism of the Tara brooch.

And it's incredible how important art work is

-to that construction of identity.

-That's right.

-So this is a replica of that wonderful brooch.

-It is.

I mean, it is really amazing, it's incredibly ornate.

It is, quite clearly. It borrowed from the reputation

and the whole symbolism of Tara.

I mean, you look at the front of it and you think,

that's pretty fantastic to begin with.

-But the really interesting thing is, you turn it over...

-Oh, wow.

-..and it's even prettier.

-That's beautiful.

That's fantastic, isn't it?

And this, of course, is the side of the brooch which would not be seen

when it was being worn.

So the wearer knew that it was there.

-The wearer knew.

-This must have been an object...

-a really prized personal possession.

-Well, this is it.

And you can quite easily see why,

whenever it came to light in 1850,

why there's a sudden kind of spiralling of jewellers saying,

"Right, we're going to make things exactly like this."

-They're cashing in.

-They are cashing in, absolutely!

These Tara-inspired brooches would become a fashion staple

in Victorian times.

But it's still big business in Ireland today.

Modern jewellers capitalise on the Celtic designs

that Ireland has become famous for.

But in actual fact,

the original Tara Brooch was made hundreds of years after the Celts.

Fortunately, the Ulster Museum has an artefact that IS Celtic.

Made in the Iron Age.

And, of course, here we have, if you like, the real thing.

This is the Bann Disc, and this dates to the first century AD.

-This is what I would call proper Celtic artwork.

-Yes.

See, what I find interesting is,

this is speaking of a connection with the continent,

of a style of art which is there in Ireland, and in Britain,

and across to the continent.

Whereas these brooches are a much more Western phenomenon.

They're Irish, they're Scottish.

There's inspiration perhaps coming through from the Iron Age,

but also from other areas as well.

And I know that art historians

are really nervous about calling this Celtic art.

It's what everybody thinks of as Celtic art.

This is it, it's the traditional kind of idea,

the stereotype of what Celtic art should be, this is it.

I think it reminds us that all too often,

we look at jewellery and artwork perhaps

as slightly frivolous objects,

but they have immense political weight.

The Tara Brooch helped to forge Ireland's identity

as a Celtic nation, but connections back to the Iron Age Celts

are still hotly debated.

There's little evidence of a Celtic invasion of Ireland.

Ancient Irish art combines inspiration from the continent

with home-grown ideas.

The topic of the ancient Celts divides archaeologists to this day.

But debate is a cornerstone of archaeology,

as seen again with our next treasure.

The story behind Ireland's most famous golden treasure

cuts right to the heart of how we interpret our ancestors.

It straddles borders,

and it pits what we perceive to be modern truth against ancient myth.

It is the Broighter Hoard.

Made up of seven gold ornaments,

every artefact in the hoard has been worked by a master craftsman

in the Iron Age.

Dr Ned Kelly is the former head of antiquities

at the National Museum of Ireland.

He's spent decades unravelling its significance.

He's convinced these objects are of European-wide importance.

The Broighter Hoard is truly one of our great national treasures.

The quality of the artwork on the objects, and indeed,

the technical superiority of the craftsmen

who made these objects,

places them at the very forefront of European metalwork in the Iron Age.

The hoard was discovered in 1896

in the townland of Broighter near Lough Foyle.

Within months, the British Museum had purchased the gold

for its London collection.

It was an act unpopular in Dublin.

The Royal Irish Academy,

with their advocate in Parliament, William Redmond,

led a crusade to bring the hoard back.

Their key weapon was a fiery lawyer named Edward Carson.

The irony here is extraordinary.

A decade later, Edward Carson would battle William

and his brother John Redmond over the burning issue of home rule.

It would bring the country to the very brink of civil war.

But for now, in 1903, they were united in a common cause -

to bring an Irish treasure back home.

To decide the gold's fate, the court sought to answer a single question.

Why had these objects been buried over 2,000 years ago?

Edward Carson argued the hoard had been buried

but the owner intended to come back for it.

He knew that under the laws of treasure trove, a lost artefact

would be awarded to the state where it was found, in this case, Ireland.

The British Museum disagreed.

They claimed the gold was an offering to the gods.

The owner had no intention of recovering it.

So, under the law, ownership fell not to the state

but to whoever found it.

Central to this argument were the stories found

in Ireland's Iron Age mythology.

Tales relating to an Irish sea god named Manannan mac Lir.

Ned Kelly has studied these myths for years,

and can link them directly to both the artefacts

and the location where they were found.

In the ancient mythology, Manannan mac Lir is a solar deity,

who was believed to have had a residence underneath Lough Foyle.

And Manannan would have been one of the attendants of the sun,

to protect the solar boat,

especially as it travelled through the Otherworld at night.

So this would have been very appropriate to offer to a sea god.

The connections are feasible.

But would a British court uphold an argument

based on ancient Irish folklore?

Or would the judge rely instead on the bare facts

that suggested this treasure was lost?

As it turned out, there were no ambiguities in the decision.

This was the judge's verdict.

"I must express my opinion that the court has been occupied

"for some considerable time in listening to fanciful suggestions

"more suited to the poem of a Celtic Bard

"than the prose of an English Law Report.

"The result is that I will make a declaration

"that the articles in question are treasure trove."

Redmond's Irish Parliamentary party, Edward Carson

and the Royal Irish Academy, had won.

So, the Broighter Hoard would be the prized possession not of London,

but of Dublin.

A city that just 20 years later

would be part of a different country.

Ned Kelly has joined us to unravel this story further.

Along with the curator here at the Ulster Museum, Dr Greer Ramsey.

There are so many ironies about this case.

We have Redmond allying with Carson, the Royal Irish Academy,

to bring this back to Dublin.

How significant was it to be returned to Dublin?

I think Carson and Redmond, the Royal Irish Academy

and the British Museum all recognised that this was a treasure

of European proportions, it was a really, really important find.

And Carson, of course, as a lawyer,

he would have realised that the legal process

to determine who owned these items hadn't been carried through.

But also, as a Dublin man who grew up just around the corner

from the National Museum, he would have seen the National Museum

as the appropriate place for a great national treasure to be placed.

And what do you think about the story behind this boat, Ned?

Is it representing some sort of Iron Age mythology?

Well, we have a number of clues in the mythology.

Manannan mac Lir is believed to have a residence beneath Lough Foyle.

-So is he a deity?

-He is a deity.

And then there's the actual objects that are in the hoard.

We know Manannan has a boat that travels over land and water,

that, of course, was the solar boat.

But he also has a cauldron of plenty.

These are both objects which are represented in the hoard,

and which are associated with solar worship,

the cauldron of plenty being the sun itself.

We find it in the Bronze Age, we find it in the Iron Age.

The idea that objects were

deliberately disposed to appease the gods,

whether it's bringing good luck or warding off evil.

So when you look at all of the evidence,

it's definitely pointing you towards these objects being

a votive deposit to this particular deity.

Now, both of you seem to be very comfortable discussing this hoard

as a votive offering.

So historically, then, you would have been arguing

for it to have been kept in the British Museum.

At the time, that's the argument.

You might not necessarily think,

"And therefore it should go to the British Museum."

I think people would always have wanted this hoard to stay in Ireland.

So this means the metalwork from this hoard ended up

in its right place in Ireland,

but for the wrong reasons.

But being in its right place would be short lived.

The partition of Ireland in 1922 left the hoard

and a wealth of other artefacts

separated by a border from where they were found.

It means here at the Ulster Museum, we must view a replica.

-Can I pick this up?

-Yeah.

This replica, these are antiques in their own right, aren't they?

-Yes, they were...

-It feels like it's going to come apart.

It will actually come apart.

If you twist it, it shows you how the hinge mechanism works.

So we're presuming this is how it would've been originally joined.

So unfortunately, as you say, it's not the original we have,

it's a replica.

After the island was partitioned,

discussions took place between the authorities in the north and south

on what to do with the national collection.

The outcome of the negotiations was that the northern attorneys

-took a cash settlement.

-Really?

Yes, and the whole of the national collection stayed in Dublin.

This is your predecessors, Greer!

Yes! I should of course point out that the majority of treasures

in the National Museum,

the best treasures in the National Museum,

were of course from the north, including the Broighter Hoard.

The story of where the Broighter Hoard ended up

is rich with irony and tangled in politics.

A tale almost as sumptuous as the treasure itself.

But further back than our modern notions of this island,

this gold treasure is part of a flowering of art and craft

that accompanied the first metalworking in Europe.

In the Bronze Age, Ireland was the centre of gold working in Europe.

And today's craftsmen still marvel at the skill

of those ancient metalworkers.

As a result, Ireland's museums are filled with artefacts,

treasures emblematic of the Bronze Age.

But they also remind us that this landscape

was once rich with our most valuable metal -

gold.

It doesn't rust or tarnish.

Treasures shine as if they were just crafted.

But gold is also easily reused,

and countless artefacts must have met their fate in a melting pot.

Lost forever.

It is a small miracle when precious objects survive from antiquity.

Our next treasure is not just one artefact, but dozens.

Gold rescued from being melted down by an antiquarian

before Ireland's National Museum had even been founded.

Unlike the Broighter Hoard, this treasure would end up in London.

A vital piece, in fact, in the British Museum's gold collection.

But it all began in a small village in County Kilkenny.

It was here in Piltown

where Redmond Anthony started a small museum in the 1830s.

Redmond Anthony was my great-great-great-great-grandfather,

and he lived here in the inn in Piltown.

The inn at the time was a hotel and it had a museum upstairs

here in the bar just above me.

Anthony's museum displayed gold artefacts

he had bought from local jewellers, along with other curiosities.

The museum didn't just hold the antiquities that Redmond collected

but it also held things such as a stuffed polar bear,

coins from Alexander the Great, etc,

and so it was probably quite unusual

in the time in rural Ireland to have those type of items

and therefore quite a few people travelled from far and wide

to just come and visit the museum here in Piltown.

Redmond Anthony's museum was not a vain pursuit.

By the mid-1840s, the Great Famine was ravaging the country.

Anthony believed his museum could help.

The entrance funds that were collected for the museum

he donated to the fever hospital in Carrick-on-Suir,

which went a long way towards alleviating some of the suffering in Carrick-on-Suir.

Redmond Anthony died in 1849,

just as the Great Famine was coming to an end.

His museum closed and his artefacts were sold off.

But part of his collection would stay together -

not in Piltown but in London.

Dr Neil Wilkin is the curator of the Bronze Age collection

at the British Museum.

Mr Anthony's son sold the British Museum around 50 objects

from his collection.

Two of the most fantastic objects that he collected

were of Bronze Age gold and we've got two of them here.

The first one is a gold torque

of a middle Bronze Age date,

so around the 14th-12th century BC.

It's made from a single bar of gold

that's been twisted in the hand from left to right

with these terminals left at the end and hooked back to fasten it.

It would have been worn around the neck of

a very important Bronze Age person.

Objects like this torque contain valuable amounts of gold.

Anthony kept close ties with jewellers,

so when a treasure appeared, he bought it before it was melted down.

This fantastic gold bracelet

that would have been worn around the arm or upper arm.

One of the clever features of this object is that it appears

to be solid, but has actually been made from a tube of gold,

so it's hollow, and in that way the Bronze Age goldsmith could

create the appearance of something solid using far less gold

than would be required to make it completely solid.

Redmond Anthony's gold

would help build the British Museum's Bronze Age collection.

They still hold the list that came with the artefacts in 1849.

I can read you a few of the objects from the list.

So we have a flange twisted gold torque,

a gold wire twisted bracelet, another gold bracelet,

gold sleeve fastener and another of those,

gold ring money and several more of those,

gold wire twisted fingering,

a golden ribbon torque.

It formed the basis of the Bronze Age gold collection in the museum.

To this day, scholars still come to the museum

to learn about Bronze Age gold.

Redmond Anthony is all but forgotten in Ireland.

But his legacy lives on at the British Museum in London.

An antiquarian who believed that

this island's golden riches were worth saving.

Many of Ireland's ancient treasures end up in the national collections

through sheer good fortune

thanks to a keen-eyed ploughman or a lucky turf cutter,

but the story of how our next treasure became known to archaeologists

is more extraordinary, perhaps, than the treasure itself,

and it all starts in a rural pharmacy.

Sheehan's chemist in County Roscommon

has been an institution in Strokestown since the 1930s.

But in 2009,

this family-run business hit headlines around the world.

I got a knock on the door. I was in bed at the time,

7.40 in the morning.

It was 27th March 2009 and it was the local garda,

and he told me I had unwanted visitors during the night.

So out the hall door I went and in the shop door.

The gate was down, the door was wide open

and already there were two guards here having a look around the place.

As she slept, thieves had stolen the Sheehan family safe,

the contents locked inside.

Despite the intrusion, Sunniva thought only papers had been lost.

Next thing the phone rang and it was one of my sisters, and I told her

what had happened and she says, "Oh, what about Daddy's necklace?"

And I says, "What necklace?" She says, "The gold one in the safe."

And I says, "Oh, Sacred Heart!"

With the whereabouts of the necklace unknown, a frantic search began.

Word spread around Ireland,

eventually reaching the National Museum.

Within minutes, I got a call from Mary Cahill in the museum

to say she was coming down

and herself and Ned Kelly from the museum arrived,

I'd say, within two hours, they were here, with two books,

and the three of us went into the kitchen.

Together they set about pinpointing exactly what the necklace was

and how important it might be.

We opened up the books and I identified this lunula,

which is the first time that I heard the word,

and these two discs

and Ned Kelly, when I pointed out what they were in his books,

he was hopping on the chair and he got highly, highly excited,

and I thought he was really going to levitate up and hit the ceiling,

I'd have to scrape him off it,

but at the same time I got such a fright because

it was only then that I realised the importance of these items.

The necklace was in fact a priceless gold artefact.

This new information kick-started the search.

Within days, the Gardai had a breakthrough.

There were two lads from here going to work early that morning,

around four o'clock, and they noticed a van up and down the street

acting suspiciously, so they took note of the number

and they rang the guards, so at least the guards had that to go on.

The tip-off would lead to a discovery -

the contents of the safe had been tossed in a skip in Dublin.

I got a call then from the guards in Roscommon and they invited us

up to the Garda station to view it

and it was funny to see it laid out in these cardboard boxes

with tissue paper and white gloves beside it.

I'd never even handled the thing. I'd never even had it in my hands.

For the National Museum, and keeper of Irish antiquities, Mary Cahill,

finding the gold was fantastic news and incredibly lucky.

They weren't noticed by the robbers because they were extremely flat,

they were extremely light,

and they were on a piece of card wrapped in brown paper

and looked to all intents and purposes like

a large letter or envelope, so they were recovered intact and undamaged.

Even more amazingly, the hoard contained not only the lunula,

but two gold sun discs

pulled from a bog together in Coggalbeg back in 1945.

The Coggalbeg hoard sheds new light on our Bronze Age ancestors.

Well, we're talking about the period

around perhaps 2200, 2300 BC.

This is when gold working was first introduced to Ireland,

so any object of this type during this period

can be truly called a treasure in its own right.

It's made of gold, it's very finely worked, it is a treasure.

However, in the case of Coggalbeg, we have the additional value

of the discovery of the gold discs and the lunula together.

Discovering them together

connects two distinct artefacts like never before

and means that this chance discovery from Sheehan's chemist

could rewrite how we see our Bronze Age ancestors.

But there are still more mysteries to this story.

How did it end up in a pharmacist's safe?

And were archaeologists at all aware of it...

-No.

-..before it was stolen in 2009?

We had no notion whatsoever.

The man who found it was a local farmer called Hubert Lannon

and he used to buy products from Sheehan's chemists

and he was known to have an interest in history,

so Hubert Lannon sold the items to Mr Sheehan.

Presumably they were just forgotten about then, that was the thing,

they were tucked away, and being so light and wrapped in paper...

Yeah, they were just in an envelope with cardboard backing to it

and there was a lot of paper in the safe, I went through all the stuff

that was recovered from the skip in a garda cell in Roscommon!

Hoping to find another couple of lunulae tucked between some pages?

Well, not quite, but what I was looking for

was details as to where he had acquired the objects.

What Ned found was vital evidence

that the lunula and the sun discs had been found together

in the bog at Coggalbeg.

Is that the first time, then, that a lunula has been found with discs?

It's the first time we can say for certain.

We had always suspected that they were associated objects,

but of course, never having found them together,

you couldn't prove that.

These are two lunulae from our collection

which are similar to the Coggalbeg hoard.

They look incredibly thin, actually,

-it's easy to see how they were passed over by those robbers.

-Yeah.

It's thin, but very heavy.

I mean, you feel the weight of the gold as soon as

I've got it there on my fingers.

I think the entire Coggalbeg hoard

weighed about two-and-a-half ounces, about 78g.

They've almost the consistency of tinfoil,

-just that they sort of bend.

-Yes.

But the metalsmiths really took advantage of the properties of gold.

Are they unique to Ireland, Greer?

There's around 100 lunulae known in total

and it's estimated that around 80 are from Ireland

and the others, then, there's a little scatter in Scotland,

Wales and south-west England, around Cornwall,

and a few are also known from the continent,

so they really reinforce this idea

that Ireland was a major producer of Bronze Age gold work

right from the early Bronze Age

through the middle and late Bronze Age.

It's such a great story, the Coggalbeg hoard,

and the way it came to light

and the fact we've got this definite association now

between sun discs and lunulae,

and I just hope that the next lunula turns up, I hope

there's an archaeologist there when it comes out of the ground.

It would be nice to be that archaeologist!

THEY LAUGH

Archaeological discoveries can fire our imagination like nothing else,

giving us stories that bring our treasures to life.

Yet archaeology is a relatively new discipline.

We often have others to thank for preserving our greatest artefacts.

Today, museums are the custodians of our most priceless objects

but for centuries in Ireland,

precious treasures were entrusted

to generation after generation of local families.

But by the 1800s,

many of these guardians were facing desperate poverty,

and so those riches were either sold or stolen,

which explains why our next treasure is not in Ireland, but in London.

During the 19th century,

London was the place to be if you were an antiquarian.

It was the height of the British Empire

and artefacts flooded into the city from around the globe.

These included Irish artefacts.

Dr Niamh Whitfield is an Irish archaeologist

living and working in Britain.

She's come to the British Museum to look for a treasure

that for over 1,000 years

used to call Christian pilgrims to County Donegal.

The treasure is St Conall Cael's bell and the shrine that held it.

The shrine itself

is beautifully decorated and a treasure in its own right,

but the real treasure here is the simple iron bell.

It's a rather ordinary-looking bell

made from a single sheet of iron folded and riveted.

It may appear ordinary

but this bell is associated with a remarkable figure

dating back to Ireland's earliest Christians in the 6th century AD.

Legend has it that the bell belonged to St Conall Cael.

He had been a stonemason but he murdered his father,

did penance, came to God and founded a monastery on Innishkeel,

an island off the coast of south-west Donegal.

St Conall Cael would be redeemed, and his monastery flourished.

This bell is part of his great legacy.

But it also reflects a transformation,

as Christianity took hold of a pagan Ireland.

Such bells form part of what was probably the greatest change

in Irish history because they were used to carry the Christian faith

to an island at the extreme edge of Europe,

as far west as you could travel in the early Middle Ages.

Here, on the edge of the medieval world, Conall Cael's bell

served a sacred purpose, calling Christian pilgrims to a holy site.

It was venerated for centuries

during a pilgrimage to the island of Innishkeel,

right up to the 19th century.

To the pilgrims who venerated it,

being in the presence of the bell was seen as a means of salvation.

For centuries, the bell itself was saved,

kept by the O'Breslin family in Donegal.

They were believed to have descended from Conall Cael himself,

entrusted with protecting this precious treasure.

Relics like this survive into modern times

because they were looked after for centuries by hereditary keepers.

The senior O'Breslin would hold the bell forward to be kissed

by pilgrims, saying, "A penny for me and you may kiss the bell."

The O'Breslins were the custodians of St Conall Cael's bell

right up to the 1850s, when poverty forced the family

to sell the treasure they'd guarded for over 1,000 years.

Today it brings us back to a time

when Christianity was transforming Ireland.

Monasteries flourished as the gospel message spread to all corners.

The artefacts reflect this change

and here in the Ulster Museum

is one of Ireland's greatest religious treasures -

the Clonmore Shrine.

It dates to in and around the 7th century,

so this is at a time when Christianity had arrived in Ireland,

and with Christianity also came writing,

but also the church demanded fine pieces of metalwork.

It's remarkably intricate and detailed and so small.

What do you think it was used for?

This was designed to hold the relics of a saint,

and by the relics of a saint,

I suppose we're thinking about a piece of hair or a bone or a tooth

so you can imagine, if I'm the Abbot of Armagh, what do I need?

I need a bell, a book, I need my crozier,

but I also need my shrine.

The Clonmore Shrine was made during a time

when Irish monks were gaining renown across Europe.

At the centre of this monastic movement was the city of Armagh,

close to where the shrine was found.

It was to Ireland what Rome is to Italy at the time

and we're told that one of the reasons why Armagh was so important,

it had, we're told, the relics of St Peter, St Paul, St Laurence,

and one that I never get tired about saying, it's also said

that Armagh had the bloodstained sacred linen cloth of our Lord,

so it had the Armagh Shroud before the Turin Shroud,

but we can imagine these small bits that people believed, I suppose,

were imbued with powers, were hidden inside the shrine

and that's what gave it its power.

The Clonmore Shrine dates to a time

when Ireland is often called "the land of saints and scholars",

when Irish monasteries gained prominence as bastions of knowledge.

They would preserve ancient scholarship for centuries to come.

When the Roman Empire collapsed,

Europe was plunged into the Dark Ages,

500 years for which there is little in the way of a written record,

but in Ireland it was a different story.

Here, right on the edge of the known world,

Irish monks continued to write,

producing exquisite manuscripts

containing not only Christian stories, but also,

as our next treasure reveals,

also preserving ancient Irish mythology and language.

Everybody's heard of the Book of Kells. It's so majestic.

Some call it Ireland's Sistine Chapel.

Penned in Latin in the 9th century, it tells the gospel story

in 680 dazzling pages

of illustration and calligraphy.

In medieval Europe, it illuminated the story of Christ,

catching the eye of anyone who glimpsed its pages,

and it's still true today.

Housed at Trinity College Dublin,

over half a million people come to see these works of art every year.

But also in Dublin is a manuscript

possibly more important to Ireland than the Book of Kells.

It's not written in Latin.

It's not even a biblical tale.

It's a book from the 12th century

that tells the story of the Irish in the Irish language.

This book, Lebor na hUidre, "The Book of the Dun Cow",

is the earliest surviving manuscript

written entirely in the Irish language.

Legend has it it was written on the skin of a cow

belonging to St Ciaran, the founder of the monastery of Clonmacnoise.

In monasteries across the country,

the story of Christ was spread through the written word,

but this book is not Christian.

In these pages are the ancient stories of pagan Ireland.

These tales are set in Ireland's pagan, pre-Christian past,

but were written by monks in monasteries,

who showed a great interest in this aspect of Ireland's prehistory,

in the characters, the pagan characters, in their customs,

their way of life, and were totally at ease in dealing with this,

even though their own message was a Christian one.

Recorded in this book are the mythological stories

that bring to life the heroes of Iron Age Ireland.

The most important is the epic of the Tain,

led by the earliest champion of Ulster, Cuchulainn.

Among the tales contained in Lebor na hUidre is Tain Bo Cuailnge,

the Cattle Raid of Cooley, the Irish national epic,

and just as Achilles is the great hero of Greek tradition,

so Cuchulainn is the hero par excellence of Irish tradition.

In this story,

the western province of Connaught attacks a depleted Ulster army.

One man stands in the way of victory - Cuchulainn.

The province of Ulster is being defended by the youthful warrior,

Cuchulainn, because all men are suffering an illness

and he holds off the Connaught army until the Ulstermen have recovered

and are able to join the fight with him and defeat them eventually.

The epoch of the Tain is part of the Ulster Cycle,

a classic of Irish mythology.

As the earliest known version,

the Book of the Dun Cow stands alone in its importance to Ireland.

The stories contained in this manuscript have fired imaginations

over very many centuries.

They are a very, very important part of Europe's literary heritage

like Beowulf, like the old Norse sagas, like The Iliad.

As WB Yeats has said,

this is part of Ireland's gift to the imagination of the world,

and as such, I believe, this is one of Ireland's greatest treasures.

The Book of the Dun Cow records Ireland's earliest stories,

including the heroic legends of Ulster.

While these words were written in the 12th century,

the stories are set in a time before Christianity,

giving a snapshot of a pagan culture in Ireland.

Dr Peter Smith is an expert in these ancient Irish manuscripts.

These are wonderful stories, aren't they, Peter?

It must be amazing to be able

to read them in the original.

Well, the collection is absolutely fantastic

and of course the Dun Cow has that brilliant collection of

the material from the Ulster Cycle.

Why do you think it is written in Irish and not in Latin?

For the sagas,

the medium par excellence was the Irish language rather than Latin.

They have a sense of themselves,

they see themselves as a great civilisation

and clearly the medieval Irish monks saw it as one of their functions

to record as much of that seanchas, or inherited lore, as was possible.

The monks were discovering their ancient past, inspired

by the great works of literature they had studied in Europe.

The Irish monks brought into their collections

the books of classical literature

that had survived from the final years of the Roman Empire

and they realise it's all right to have a pagan past

and if that was good enough for the people of continental Europe,

surely they could find a place in their hearts

for their own ancient literature

and from that, they are beginning to construct the national history.

It's interesting, isn't it? Because what you're saying is that

the mythology is being transformed into history

-rather than the other way round.

-Yeah, exactly.

The medieval monks, they found themselves without a written record

for the very early period,

and this material acts as history in that sense.

My guess is that they probably saw this as fiction,

but they undoubtedly felt

that there was some foundation of historical truth to it

and I think that they held it in great esteem indeed.

These tales, whether fact or fiction,

were now part of Ireland's story

and, in more modern times, would help to restore a lost heritage.

This material, for a few hundred years,

became kind of the preserve of the Irish-speaking world.

In the final years of the 19th century

and the early 20th century, the figure of Cuchulainn becomes

the very embodiment of the Irish hero.

If the Finns have their great sagas

and the Norse people have their sagas,

we have our saga in the form of The Cattle Raid Of Cooley,

the Tain Bo Cuailnge, and it is, I suppose, the national epic.

And I think it's interesting with stories, that there is

an evolutionary element to this, that good stories endure,

and that these are obviously very good stories.

They are persisting down through the centuries.

They still speak to us today.

These Irish myths, written down in the early 12th century,

have become part of the great tradition of classical literature,

chronicling the story of ancient Ireland.

But less than a century later, that story would face turmoil.

In 1169, invaders from Britain landed on the east coast of Ireland.

It's often taken to mark the beginning

of an English-Irish struggle, present to this day.

But as history records,

this relationship was not always how it appeared.

Many of this island's treasures

have been made to serve political purposes

at some point in their history.

Works of art used as pieces of political propaganda.

But our next treasure IS a piece of political propaganda

that looks like a work of art.

It was created 800 years ago

and it reveals how an Irish city

proclaimed its loyalty to an English king.

The great port city of Waterford.

It was here where some of the first Anglo-Norman invaders landed.

By the 14th century, this was a royal port -

THE trade link between England and Ireland.

Waterford had a monopoly.

But there was competition and a struggle for economic power

would produce Waterford's greatest artefact.

Stretched out before us

is one of the most intriguing treasures of 14th-century Ireland.

It's the Great Charter Roll of Waterford.

Over four metres long and made of calf skin, the Charter Roll contains

the earliest contemporary portrait

of a medieval English monarch, Edward III.

And the first depiction of an Irish city - Waterford.

This roll is unique in medieval Europe.

There's nothing like this exists anywhere else

and for that reason alone it is one of the great treasures of Ireland.

But, beautiful as this object is,

it was never meant to be just a work of art.

Instead it's a legal argument in which the city of Waterford

pleads its case to remain the centre of royal trade in Ireland

in the face of a competing port at New Ross.

What this roll was trying to do was flatter the king,

keep the king's attention about what was

a very complicated legal dispute with the town of New Ross,

and hope that the king would come down on the side of the port of Waterford.

Drawn into the roll are subtle reminders

of Waterford's allegiance to Edward III.

The roll has on the top of it here

an image of the walled town of Waterford and above that,

King Edward III receiving from the mayor of the city a key.

And that's the key to the gates of the city,

recognising the fact that the king was lord and owner of the city

and that he could come and go as he pleases.

But this document represents more than mere flattery.

It is an overt declaration of loyalty to the English crown.

Lined all along one side of the roll are images of kings of England,

and here, what they were trying to say is,

not only was this a royal city, but also that it was a loyal city,

and had been continuously loyal

since the very first English king came here to this city in 1171.

However, these warm words and flattering images

only barely concealed a cold threat.

Along with the great images of the kings are the governors of Ireland,

accompanied by four mayors, and what they were trying to say was,

if you diminish the port of Waterford, you are also diminishing

the power of your other royal towns, that's Dublin, Cork and Limerick.

Diminishing one of us, you diminish all of us

and you will make enemies of all of your royal ports.

The threat would work.

King Edward III kept Waterford a royal port,

clinching the city's monopoly on trade.

In the coming centuries,

the relationship between England and Ireland would evolve,

but it would be fraught, marked by war, rebellion

and deeply entrenched in myth,

seen clearly in our next treasure -

an artefact from Ireland's most famous battle.

The Battle of the Boyne was a turning point in Irish history,

when the Catholic King James

challenged the Protestant King William.

At stake was the English throne.

But the legacy of William's victory

was felt most strongly here in Ireland

where 300 years later, it is still a symbol of religious divide.

But like most histories,

this story is not as black and white as it seems.

It is, as our next treasure reveals,

full of contradictions and surprises.

Collins Barracks in Dublin.

Originally built by the British to defend against Irish rebellion.

Today it's part of the Republic of Ireland's National Museum,

and home to a symbolic and contentious treasure.

A relic from one of the largest battles ever waged on Irish soil -

the Battle of the Boyne, fought in 1690.

They've suffered the ravages of use and time,

but these doe-skin gauntlets,

so beautifully made, were actually worn by William, Prince of Orange.

It's very, very tempting to imagine

King William wearing these very gauntlets

as he rode out to battle that hot summer's day in July 1690.

King William is heralded for his victory at the Boyne

where he crushed King James and his Catholic army.

For some, these symbols of his leadership have become sacred.

Whether or not these are actually battlefield artefacts

is almost irrelevant.

These are intensely personal items

and they still bear the physical impression

of King William's own hands.

His well-used gauntlets are important artefacts,

but it is the legend of Protestant King Billy that has become folklore.

King William's myth has grown over the centuries.

His victory over James at the Boyne

has been heralded as a largely Protestant triumph.

Today the mythology surrounding William of Orange

is one celebrated every year.

But, in actual fact, this story is not simply bound up in a religious divide.

The Battle of the Boyne was a European battle

and the soldiers who fought in it

were united by a complex set of political and military alliances,

often not based on religion at all.

King William had the support and backing of the Vatican

whilst German Protestants fought on the side of King James II.

So this battle is anything but clear cut, or black and white.

Even the story of how this treasure ended up in Dublin is unexpected.

Two days after the battle, William gave his gauntlet

to a friend near the battle site in County Meath.

He had stayed the night at Lismullin House,

the home of Sir John Dillon, a very trusted officer,

to whom he gave these gauntlets.

And it would have been a very significant gesture.

They stayed with the Dillons for over 200 years,

a treasured gift from a king.

But in 1923, they were rushed to safety during the Irish Civil War.

Lismullin House was an obvious target.

The Dillons were traditional landowners

with close and established ties with the English aristocracy.

But the thing was,

the current Sir John Dillon was very well liked in County Meath.

So when the burning party came to Lismullin House

they allowed him and his family to remove

their most treasured possessions,

and that included King William's gauntlets.

This personal gift has become a cherished artefact

from a symbolic battle.

But like so many treasures in Ireland's history,

their story has taken on its own mythology.

Now, these gloves are quite beautiful

but obviously they connect us back to that key battle.

The Boyne becomes such an important pivotal battle

because of its European context.

William is supported by the Pope.

-Hang on a minute. William is a Protestant.

-That's right.

And his arch enemy is Louis XIV, the Catholic King of France.

The Pope wants an army to defeat Louis XIV

because he begins to feel that Louis XIV's version of Catholicism

is actually stymieing the powers of the Vatican.

So we have a Protestant King William fighting a Catholic King James

but it's not that black and white, is it?

It's not and that's the whole problem

of subsequent interpretation

and mythology, if you like, about the Boyne,

is it becomes a clear-cut issue when it was anything but.

The legacy from a battle that still divides Ireland,

but one with surprising European roots.

We've revealed treasures that helped create Ireland's Celtic identity...

..seen how manuscripts have saved ancient legends...

..and been used as propaganda.

We finish with two artefacts from the 20th century -

declarations at the heart of modern Ireland, north and south.

-And almost bringing us up to date, well, not quite...

-Yes.

..still a century ago now, you've brought these two documents

to show me and these are incredibly important political documents.

These are really, you could say, a legacy of the Boyne

in a roundabout fashion.

We have on the left the Ulster's Solemn League and Covenant,

signed in 1912 by nearly half a million men and women.

And on the right we have Poblacht na hEireann,

the Provisional Government of the Irish Republic's Proclamation of Independence.

Both of these documents have been inspirational

to two divergent communities on the island.

So Ulster's Solemn League and Covenant then, they're saying that,

"Home Rule would be disastrous to the material wellbeing of Ulster

"as well as the whole of Ireland."

That's it.

-Which is completely the opposite...

-Completely the opposite.

You couldn't get two parallel opposites if you tried, Alice.

This one says, we are Irish

and we will fight anybody who tells us any different.

And we can see the ironies in the way that, for example,

the Broighter Hoard was handled by Edward Carson,

who is the very first signature on this,

actually allying with a nationalist party

to bring the Broighter Hoard back to Dublin.

And of course, 1922, there is partition on the island

and that Hoard ends up,

not in Belfast where he signs this covenant,

but in Dublin where they have posted this up on the GPO.

But I think it's fascinating, all the way through,

looking at all the different treasures we've seen,

actually including these,

I think these are part of Ireland's treasures, aren't they,

are interesting in the context of their own time,

but they also remain incredibly significant

-and relevant to us today.

-That's it.

We've witnessed this island's most iconic artefacts,

treasures that tell the epic story of Ireland...

..from past to present.