Search for hero Irish giant's bones rocked by DNA twist
The expensive excavation project to bring Irish historical hero Patrick Sarsfield back home to Ireland needs an urgent investment of funds, it has emerged.
Some supporters fear it could be in danger of stalling due to finances - leaving organisers hoping for a rich benefactor or a private company to step in. Sarsfield, the 1st Earl of Lucan, famously led the resistance of Irish Catholics in Limerick against England's King William III in 1690. The Irish Mirror reported in 2022 that excavations to find the skeletal remains of 17th Century earl Patrick, who was literally a giant of his age, measuring an estimated 6' 6', was to begin in Belgium.
Limerick University's Dr Loic Guyon, who founded the Sarsfield Homecoming Project in 2020, said: "We hope to raise around €45,000, with a minimum of €20,000 by mid-August, at the latest. I hope someone with means, or a private company, might read the press articles and offer to help us to keep the project going as the amount of funding still needed to complete it is quite significant.'
Dr Guyon explained: 'The cost of the operation is unfortunately going to be much higher than anticipated. Instead of [the original cost] sum for €40,000, additional measures will now require approximately €70,000."
Dr Guyon said: 'Fortunately, we recently received a very generous donation from a company based in Limerick. We currently have about €54,000 left in our budget. But it is not enough to pay for the works or the many trips and tests that our team will need. We hope that we might be able to raise the further €45,000 which we estimate necessary to pay the building company and complete the project.
'We are at a critical point of the project. If we don't manage to raise an absolute minimum of €20,000 by mid-August at the latest, the Sarsfield Homecoming Project will be stalled for the first time since its launch in 2020.' He added: 'Hundreds of people have kindly donated to the project via our Go Fund Me Page.' The Go Fund Me Page called Help Us Bring Patrick Sarsfield Back to Ireland has a €70,000 fundraising goal and has so far raised €24,855. You can visit the page here.
Historians say Sarsfield prevented the total destruction of Limerick – which has named a bridge, a bank and a square in his honour – before he fled to France with King James Stuart II after the 1690 Battle of the Boyne. In France, Sarsfield became Field Marshal of the army of King Louis XIV and died fighting in 1693 during the battle of Landen-Neerwinden and is buried in Huy, Belgium.
His exact burial location has been a mystery for hundreds of years but Loic Guyon, the Honorary Consul of France to Ireland, launched an extraordinary project in 2020 to find his resting place. Dr Guyon found a first mention of the death of Earl Lucan Sarsfield in a document of August 13, 1693, that specified that he died from his injuries in Huy 'where he had been taken'.
He believes Sarsfield was buried in the grounds of the old Saint-Martin church, which is to be an abandoned housing area, and has pinpointed the grave site at 21 Avenue des Fossés. The entire avenue was bought by the authorities of Huy to transform it into a future administrative centre – but have agreed first to carry out an archaeological dig of the site.
Agreement has already been reached that if the remains in Huy are that of Sarsfield, then he will be repatriated to Limerick. To get the DNA, Dr Guyon mapped the Sarsfield family tree to trace his descendants and found Timothy Sarsfield in Cork whose DNA has been provided to allow genetic matching.
However, there was disappointing news last week when DNA tests produced an unexpected setback. Male skeletal remains which were discovered at the Huy site in January were found to be those of local men.
Dr Guyon said: 'One of them was particularly tall, especially for that period, which made us think that he could have been Patrick Sarsfield. But the DNA results are clear. None of the two skeletons was that of an Irishman.' Dr Guyon now hopes that the search can be expanded to the back garden of the church after Huy City Council granted permission to his team. He said: 'This represents a big challenge in administrative, financial and technical terms.'
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