The Harvard Mission to Ireland (1932-1936) was a five-year anthropological study of Ireland which included three strands: social anthropology, physical anthropology and an archaeology programme which included the excavation of eighteen sites. The object of the project was to study the races and cultures of Ireland and to determine who the Celts were, where they originated from and to establish who were their modern descendants in Ireland.

The Government of the Irish Free State, independent since 1922, welcomed this study. While eugenics underpinned the Harvard Mission project it also fitted neatly into the nationalist cultural regeneration project undertaken by the Irish Free State. This embraced history, folklore, Celtic Studies, the Irish language and archaeology. It also dovetailed with other important archaeological initiatives which included new legislation to protect National Monuments, a new cultural policy document for the National Museum and the establishment of the Unemployment Schemes for archaeological research.

Archaeology was central to nation-building in Ireland and a conduit for the creation of a state identity. It paralleled similar cultural regeneration projects in other nation states in Europe. It also placed Ireland in the forefront of innovative archaeological research during the 1930s.

This paper will challenge the idea that the cultural nationalist project undertaken in the Irish Free State during the 1930s was an insular one. The Harvard Mission to Ireland gave an international dimension to this process and helped consolidate the idea of a Celtic Ireland in a global context through the medium of archaeology.

First Author: Mairead Carew

Keywords:
history of archaeology
nationalism
identity
politics
eugenics
race