4,000-year-old necklace found in dumpster

Freakish good luck returns Irish ancient treasures to National Museum

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A gold lunula from Coggalbeg, Co. Roscommon

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A 4,000 year old necklace is in The National Museum of Ireland  after it was found in a dumpster.

Worn by early kings the necklace, called a lunala, and discs were worn by the early kings of Ireland. It is thought to date from between 2,300 and 1,800 BC.

In March 1945 it was found in Coggalbeg, County Roscommon by farmer Hubert Lannon. He found it in a bog while he was cutting turf and kept it in his home.

Two years later he passed the necklace on to a local chemist Patrick Sheehan, in Strokestown, who kept the priceless piece of history in his shops' safe. There it remained until February 2009 when two thieves grabbed the safe during a burglary.

In March this year two men pleaded guilty for the burglary and were given three year suspended sentences. Working with the police curators from the National Museum’s Irish Antiquities Division found out that the jewelry along with other documents and papers from the Sheehan’s safe had been left in a dumpster in Dublin.

By the time the police had received this information they literally had hours to locate the dumpster before the trash would be collected. The detectives who waded through a dumpster of trash to find the delicate jewelry, which weighs just 78 grams, were rewarded on the retrieval of the treasures.

The three pieces, the necklace and two discs, are thought to be one of the most important archaeological discoveries for many years. As the Museum director Pat Wallace said himself “There is a whole lot of conjoined freaks of good luck to make it possible.”

Read more: Irish manuscript found is more important than the Dead Sea Scrolls

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