Queen Scotia

11/03/2023.Reading time 4 minutes.

Scota appears in the Irish chronicle Book of Leinster (containing a redaction of the Lebor Gabála Érenn). According to Irish Folklore and Mythology, the battle of Sliabh Mish was fought in this glen above the town of Tralee, where the Celtic Milesians defeated the Tuatha Dé Danann but Scotia, the Queen of the Milesians died […]

#OTD in 1835 – The coffin of mummy, Takabuti, was opened and unrolled in Belfast Natural History Society’s museum at College Square North.

27/01/2023.Reading time 1 minute.

Takabuti was the first Egyptian mummy to be brought to Ireland. After the Napoleonic Wars there was a brisk trade in Egyptian mummies. She was brought to Belfast in 1834 by Thomas Greg of Ballymenoch House, Holywood, Co Down. Her hieroglyphs were deciphered by a leading Egyptologist from Ireland, Dr Edward Hincks, of Killyleagh, Co […]

The Grave of the Yellow Men

22/01/2023.Reading time 2 minutes.

It’s said that the blood that flows in all of us; every one of us in the country is blood that came from across the sea. Our identity is best understood from a maritime perspective. For centuries, Ireland has been a haven for explorers, settlers, colonialists, navigators, pirates and traders absorbing goods and people from […]