Farmer amazed by discovery of ancient golden rings

Norman Witherow, who lives near Raphoe in Co Donegal, said the discovery was made during drainage work in a field when one of the men moved a stone.

The farmer said that, initially, he had no “appreciation” of what had been unearthed, and that the ancient treasure had been “rumbling about” in his car seat before a goldsmith friend advised him to contact the National Museum in Dublin.

“We were doing drainage work and we were looking for a burst drain,” he explained. “The field had got very wet, and we were digging test holes to try and find the drain and see where it was blocked.

“Eventually, we sort of had the job kind of finished and we were tidying up a lot of these test holes and reconnecting drains that we had cut through. Two of the guys that were working, one of them lifted a stone and there were the four gold rings.”

He continued: “It’s amazing. We had no appreciation of what we had found. We just sort of examined it and speculated a bit, and threw them into the footstep of the quad. And there they lay while we went on our lunch.

“We took them then and rinsed them under the tap, and admired them. We thought they were nice.”

Mr Witherow continued: “They kicked about through our kitchen through the weekend, and the neighbours and friends looked at them and were speculating. I showed them to a goldsmith, a friend of mine, on Monday night.

“Her jaw dropped. She said this was major, and she was spot on. She said they were hugely significant and that I should get on to the national museum post haste, so the next morning I rang the museum and told them what I’d found.

“They asked if I could send them up photographs. They were sent up the photographs and they rang back and said ‘we’ve nearly had a heart attack up here’.

“They were here all day yesterday (Wednesday) into the afternoon, and there are some of them still here. They’re fairly convinced that it’s a once-off. Perhaps some unfortunate person buried them for safe keeping and died in battle or something so they didn’t get back. And here they’ve been since then.”

Mr Witherow admits that much of the historical and archaeological significance of the discovery is lost on him, but admitted having been taken aback by early estimates of the age of the golden rings.

“They’re dating them at 3,000 years old, one thousand years Before Christ — that’s the kind of time scale you’re looking at,” he said.

“I wouldn’t be hugely interested in this stuff, and a lot of it went over my head, but if you think about it maybe the last person who touched these was over 3,000 years ago.

“And they’re saying they probably won’t be touched again by another human hand. They’ll be handled with gloves.”

Mr Witherow joked: “So, really, rumbling about in the seat of my car for a weekend wasn’t the thing for them.”

He added: “I have to say the people who came down from the national museum and the archaeologists were very nice people. No highfalutin boffins, just down-to-earth people who were very appreciative that we got in touch and handled the thing as best we could - because it doesn’t always happen apparently.”

Maeve Sikora from the National Museum told the Irish Times the find was important for understanding the Irish Bronze Age history.