Galway Advertiser 1999/1999_09_09/GA_09091999_E1_019.pdf 

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Another view of mummies on display
Dear Editor, Ten years or so ago, I was doing some research in the wonderful British Library (RIP!) and on my many much-needed breaks I would wander through the muse um, finding myself often drawn to the Mummy Room, which held the same fasci nation for me as it does for others, and which became my room of predilection. As I would stand over these glass-cased coffins and look at the withered bodies with leather-like skin they contained, I, too, would think: "This was a real person once..." but in my case the thought would cause my heart to swell up with over whelming emotion and awe, certainly not indignation or disgust. I always found it a profoundly moving and fantastic experience, for me to be there in the presence of the remains of someone who was not a mere museum exhibit but, as you say, had been someone's son or daughter or husband or wife. Someone also who'd looked on sights unimaginable to me, heard sounds, talked of things which I have no notion of, and yet someone who'd had thoughts and emotions like me. Someone, because I was standing there gazing at them and thinking these things about them, was made almost alive again, if only in my imagination. I felt a deep sense of kinship, of com munion, between these 'people* beneath the glass, these people from thousands of years ago and me. In a way I felt as though I was saluting another...myself, and having acknowledged the same fundamental human characteristics as myself in what "used to be a real person", I was looking ahead at my own death. Of course, I can see and understand your point. Of course this may well be a very objectionable practice, this displaying of dead bodies, ripped from their place of rest. But one can also be quite subjective about it. I would not mind being put in a museum at some point in the future. Far from "shrinking in horror" from such a prospect, I find it distinctly more attractive than that of being committed to dark earth and even darker oblivion, I'll have taken my dignity and ail that matters with me to a better place. In the end, perhaps it's what you choose to make of it. Not only beauty, but respect and honour lie in the eye, and the mind, of the beholder. Yours, Veroniqne Castellanos, Galway.

Editor's Comment:
T h a n k you for y o u r reflections of the Comment of] September 2. As you indicate, there is a fascination - a fascination of the uncanny, perhaps - about mummies, based on the undoubted fact that what we see displayed a r e the bodies of people like us who lived many thou sands of years ago. Indeed, there is something awesome about confronting such tangible mirrors of mortality. H o w e v e r , t h e s e p e o p l e , w h e n t h e y w e r e buried,! believed that the next time they would be 'exposed' would be in the presence of their gods, in the afterlife, and not before the curious gaze - however philosophically mediat ed - of someone visiting a museum several millennia later. There is a certain self-indulgence in the idea that one of) the purposes of these frail and unprotected bodies is to arouse lofty feelings in the onlooker. For many people, one of the irreducible aspects of a person's identity is the body, which is why we bury them with ceremony and react with indignation and horror if someone does not receive a proper burial. This is one of the oldest and most deeply-rooted human sentiments, whose powerful nature is explored in Sophocles' powerful drama Antigone. To disinter the body of an enemy and display it was felt to be the greatest insult you could pay to the memory of the dead and their living descendants. It is perhaps only in our age, when so many of the old taboos a n d t h e old pieties have been t h r o w n on t h e dustheap that the question of the appropriateness or not of digging up the dead and turning mem into an enter taining spectacle could even he raised.

Dear Editor, On a recent visit to the Town Hall Theatre to see Red Kettle's exellent production of Happy Birthday Dear Alice, I was annoyed by not one but three mobile phones ringing during the performance. Despite the fact that people were requested to switch off mobile phones at the beginning of the performance, there are some very annoying people around who consider them selves above such advice. To add to the disturbance, one lady actually proceeded to answer her call at a very sensitive moment during the per formance. The audience was incensed by such a complete lack of courtesy to the actors and the other members (bar two!) of the audience. Yours sincerely, Geraldine Noonan Baile Eamoinn, SpiddaL

Theatre-goer driven mad by mobile phones

Where can this reader get s o m e frog's legs?
Dear Editor, Following a recent trip to France, I enjoyed with some relish frog's legs. After searching high and low, I come to you in desperation. Can any of your readers advise me where I might be able to find some of these wonderful delicacies in Ireland? Yours, etc, Ms S Carroll, Salthill.

ATTENTION

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A n t i q u e s / F i n e Art A u c t i o n
To be held on Sunday 12th September at 2.00pm in the Oyster Manor Hotel, Clarinbridge, Co Galway. Viewing from 11.00am, morning of auction. This is a unique opportunity for the discerning collector to purchase quality pieces of antique furniture, clocks and fine Irish art.

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COrry!

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Galway Retail Park Headford Road Galway Tel 091-509720 in....

Fine Art
To include work by the following artists: JH Craig, Frank McKelvey, MC Wilkes, W Egginton, Charles McAuley, JW Carey, Markey Robinson, David Overend, Gladys MacCabe, Lorraine Christie, Ann Michael, David Gordon Hughes, Anne Michael, Kenneth Webb, R Egginton, RB Higgins, Marie Carroll, Alex Williamson, Hugh McPatrick.

Clocks
Clocks include: Mahogany grandfather clock, Victorian double weighted Vienna wall clock, Victorian large spring Vienna wall clock, Victorian barometer, Victorian small spring Vienna wall clock, American drop dial wall clock, American mirror back wall clock, Victorian keyhole double weighted wall clock, Victorian double weighted miniature wall clock.

Antiques
List of selected items from Treanors for Galway Auction: Victorian inlaid mahogany serpentine display cabinet, Victorian Cromwell chest, Victorian carved back sideboard, mahogany circular dining room table with extending leaves on tripod base with brass feet with 2 carvers & 8 chairs, mahogany 2 leaf telescopic dining room table with 2 carvers & 8 chairs, French marquetry credenza with ormolu mounts, heavy carved mahogany Kings Bed, Pr. Victorian pot cupboards, 19th century mohogony carved tapestry 3 piece suite, heavy carved gilted overmantie, Victorian mahogany music cabinet, Pr. 10ft. bronze ladies holding chandelier lights, bronze life-size stag and Doe, Pr. Bronze sitting signed greyhounds on marble pedestals, Pr. mahogany elbow chairs, mahogany drinks cabinet, pine breakfront bookcase, mahogany partners desk, set of 4 Victorian dining room chairs, ladies' writing desk, Victorian mirror back sideboard, Edwardian bow fronted display cabinet, Victorian mirror - back walnut credenza, Victorian music cabinet, early Victorian double ended settee.

LEADING RETAILER

CARRYDUFF
Auction Group
10 C o m b e r Road, C a r r y duff, Belfast. Telephone: 028 9081 3775

Curtains Co-ordinate Bedding Plain Bedding Rails & Poles Household Goods Giftwares
Student Specials now available on Pillows/ Duvets/Duvet Covers and Matching Curtains
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