Irish Mail on Sunday

Skull was bought by doctor from gravediggers

By Brian Carroll

A Human skull found hidden in an 18th-century house was bought from gravediggers by a doctor who then mysteriously disappeared, gardai believe.

The skull was discovered shortly before Christmas in the roof of the 210-year-old house in east Cork. The property, which changed hands last year, was once part of the Duke of Devonshire Lismore estate in the townland of Glentrasna in Ballynoe.

Several newspapers have reported local rumours that the house is haunted and that the skull may be that of another unnamed doctor who vanished around 1910. Both these rumours are wide of the mark according to the Morrison family who lived in the house for almost 140 years before selling it on last year. The say that in 1910 the house was solely occupied by the Morrison's.

However according to land valuation records, the house had been occupied 150 years earlier by a Doctor William Dwyer, who abruptly left in 1868 severing his familys 70- year connection with the property.

So fas, the gardai and a respected local historian Pat Barry have been unable to discover any evidence of what happened to him.

though a death register was in existence at the time there is no record of a Dr. Dwyer's death according to Mr. barry who was enlisted by gardai to provide a complete record of everyone of everyone who lived in the house.

A specialist in human remains at the archaeology department of UCC will start carbon dating the skull this week. Gardai believe the doctor may have bought the skull on the black market from gravediggers. In those days before plastic skulls became available it was common practice for doctors to keep a human skull and skelethal bones for use in their work. However it was illegal to procure these, so they were often kept hidden. Det. Sgt. Sean Leahy heading the envistigation believes that this is the most likely scenario.

 

Prelimenary estimates by assistant State pathologist Dr. Margaret Bolster are that the skull which shows no signs of violence is more than 100-years old.

Because there is no record of Dr. Dwyer's death in Ireland in 1868 gardai are still seekingg to explain its disappearance. They have now asked Mr. Barry to check on land lease recordings of the Devonshire estate.

These may explain why Dr. Dwyer suddenly left and why the lease which had been in the Dwyer family since 1797, was transfered to Edmund Morrison, a tenant farmer from the nearby townland of Killassaragh.

Dr. William dwyert had inherited the house fromhis parents in 1863 and lived there for approximately six years before his mysterious disappearance in 1868. He would have been in his late twenties or early thirties at the time he left the estate.

Edmund Morrison and his wife Ellen were registered as the new tenants in 1868.The lease was subsequently taken over by Edmund's son, Thomas who bought the property from the Duke in 1935.

Thomas's son, Martin sold the seven roomed house which sits on 68 acres of farmland last year. A member of the Morrison family told "The mail on Sunday" yesterday; "the house was never haunted, there was another house nerarby which was haunted and people are mixing the houses up".