Trinity to Return Inishbofin Remains and Apologise to Community

Ailbhe Noonan Editor

College has confirmed that the remains of bodies from Inishbofin are to be returned to the island community from where they were taken more than a century ago.

In an update from the Trinity Legacies Review Working Group sent to the entire college community, it was confirmed that the remains would be returned and that “further engagement will now take place with the Inishbofin community to identify the appropriate way of returning the crania”.

The email confirmed that “The decision to do this was approved today by the College Board following a period of research, analysis and public consultation about the future of the remains overseen by the Trinity Legacies Review Working Group”, which is chaired by Senior Dean Professor Eoin O’Sullivan.

It continued: “By way of context, in July 1890 ethnologist Alfred Cort Haddon and student Andrew Francis Dixon (subsequently Trinity’s Professor of Anatomy), took partial skeletal remains of 13 people from St Colman’s monastery in Inishbofin”.

“As is clearly documented in Haddon’s diary of the time, they did not seek the community’s consent”, O’Sullivan added.

“Since then, the remains have been stored in Trinity College Dublin. This related to contemporary interest in