A group of Indigenous Australians want to bring home the preserved head of an ancestor that has been in Dublin for more than one hundred years.
The group arrived in Dublin as part of a worldwide campaign to seek the return to the Australian homeland of the remains of their ancestors which are scattered in museums and institutions throughout Europe and America.
The preserved head of Shaney has been kept in the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin for over a hundred years. It is believed that Shaney was murdered in his native Hobart in Tasmania during the colonisation of Australia.
Aboriginal tradition demands that both the body and spirit be laid to rest in the earth of their homeland or they will never be at peace.
Michael Mansell from Tasmania, who claims to be Shaney's grandson, protested outside the College of Surgeons demanding that Shaney be handed over. He feels it is his Aboriginal cultural obligation to retrieve the head. The spirit of Shaney will remain in a state of trauma until it is reunited with its body.
Shaney Protest
Bob Weatherall from Brisbane explains the importance to Aboriginal people of repatriating their ancestors back to Australian soil to become one with the earth and then enter the spirit world.
The group has now called on both President Patrick Hillery and An Taoiseach Charles Haughey to support their claim. They say that they will not leave Ireland without Shaney so he can finally rest in peace in his homeland.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 18 February 1990. The reporter is Cathy Halloran.
