Journal of the Royal Society of Irish Antiquaries, Fall 2012
Janet T. Marquardt (ed),
Françoise Henry in Co. Mayo. The Inishkea Journals
.
Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2012. 176 pp; 15 col ills, 83 figs. Catalogue price: €17.50; w eb price: €15.75
(paperback) .
ISBN 978-1-84682-374-9.
In 2010 the American art historian Janet Marquardt was ‘grounded’ in Dublin by the
Icelandic volcanic eruption. She was working on a monograph about the Zodiaque publications on Romanesque art for which Françoise Henry had contributed the
French versions of her classic, three-volume study of Irish art from the early Christian to the Romanesque period. So she decided to spend her time checking out the archival material on Françoise Henry held in Dublin. In the Royal Irish Academy she came across unexpected riches – four unpublished notebooks dated to 1937-38 in which
Françoise Henry had kept highly personal and beautifully written accounts of her experiences when working on excavations on Inishkea islands off the coast of Co
Mayo. Later she came across another Inishkea diary dated to 1946 in UCD, together with further personal notes made in 1950, this time combined with excavation notes and pay records. To those familiar only with Françoise Henry’s scholarly publications these discoveries will be a revelation, showing that she could also write extraordinarily evocative descriptions of landscapes, people and a vanishing way of life in the far west of Ireland.
Françoise Henry was in her mid thirties when she first arrived at Inishkea in 1937.
She had already achieved a lot. She had had a thorough training in Paris as both an art historian and an archaeologist under such masters as Émile Mâle (medieval iconography), Henri Focillon (medieval sculptural forms) and Henri Hubert (Celtic archaeology). She had learnt to draw and sketch. Both her major thesis, on early medieval Irish sculpture, and her minor one, on prehistoric tumuli in France, were in print, as were a number of other articles, including that on hanging bowls. She had a job at UCD, teaching French and giving the early Purser Griffith lectures in the history of art. Moreover, it was obvious from the many trips she had made around
Ireland by bicycle when preparing her thesis that she was an intrepid traveler.
For a young French woman to decide to work on islands off western Mayo, where most sea crossings were made by currach, was certainly adventurous. Despite variable weather and occasional misunderstandings with some islanders, there is no hint in the journals that she was daunted by the many tasks she set herself – carrying out a series of excavations, as well as surveying carved stones and monuments in Inishkea, Caher
Island to the south and nearby Duvillaun and Inishglora (the results published in the
JRSAI in 1945, 1951 and 1952). Nor was she deterred by her limited knowledge of
Irish, the language of the islanders.
She arrived at a time when their world was changing. Most had just been resettled on the Mullet peninsula but had not lost their sense of connection to the islands. The diaries reveal just how fascinated Henry was by all she saw and heard. She had an acute awareness of her physical surroundings, with a painter’s eye for detail and a novelist’s ear for dialogue. Her descriptions of the physical world around her are one of the delights of the diaries. Tiny details caught her eye – the way a wave breaks on

the shore, the appearance of the sea during a storm, or the changes wrought by mist and rain on the landscape.
She was also deeply interest in personalities, and wrote many lively pen portraits of individuals she encountered. She had, in addition, a strong sympathy for animals on an island empty of people, and movingly described how they were so lonely that they clustered round the house she lived in. As an outsider, she was fascinated as well by folk beliefs and events such as wakes. Just occasionally she reveals just how steeped she herself was in early Irish history. For example, she and her friend, the Celtic scholar, Máirín Bean Uí Dhálaigh, were busy excavating when they noticed a boat approaching the island. They feared an unwelcome interruption to their work, which brought to mind all the passages in Adomnán’s
Life of Columba , composed at the end of the seventh century, about ‘troublesome guests’ spotted out to sea heading for St
Columba’s island sanctuary of Iona.
She does occasionally make specific reference to the work at Inishkea – difficulties locating a cross slab she wished to photograph, progress with excavations, or the thrilling discovery of a penannular brooch-pin at a wooden hut at Inishkea North where purple dye was manufactured from the dogwhelk, Nucella lapillus , which she thought indicated a probable seventh century date for the site. However, she generally recorded her professional observations elsewhere. The journals are truly personal.
Written in Françoise Henry’s native French, the original texts were transcribed by
Barbara Wright, whose is publishing the transcript, together with an introductory essay about Henry’s prose, in Françoise Henry. Les îles d’Inishkea: carnets personnels (Lille 2012). The superb English translation of the transcript is by Huw
Duffy. It has been expertly edited by Janet Marquardt, whose excellent introduction should be read by anyone interested in Françoise Henry herself or her intellectual background. As editor, she consulted many people when preparing the volume. These included archaeologists such as Sharon Greene-Douglas (who has assembled a full record of Henry’s excavations at Inishkea); Irish language experts; friends and former students of Françoise Henry; and the descendants of the islanders now living on the
Mullet peninsula. As a result she has also been able to provide very informative footnotes, as well as three helpful maps drawn by Greg Fennell and Bill Doran. She also tracked down photographs Henry herself took in the islands and was able to identify a number of the individuals referred to in the text with the help of their descendants.
She visited the islands herself, taking photographs in both colour and black and white, the latter juxtaposed with Henry’s own photographs to show recent changes.
As one of the UCD students whom Françoise Henry befriended and supported, I have a particular interest in the book. I have asked myself if I recognized her voice there.
Curiously, during my time at UCD she was never asked to teach archaeology students like myself, even though we all read her work. I got to know her through attending her
Purser Griffith classes in the history of art. Although I had no inkling that she wrote so accurately about the natural world, I clearly remember the concentrated way she taught us to use our eyes during these classes. I also recognize the amused way she viewed those who took themselves too seriously.
I have been left wondering what the islanders made of her Irish, which like her
English was probably spoken with a heavy French accent. However, I was certainly familiar with something that dismayed some of them, namely her strong work ethic

and determination to see through the job in hand. During the summer I was sometimes her guest in the family home she retained near Auxerre in France. While she relaxed by cooking and gardening, and entertained me by to taking me to meet artist friends and to see major sites such as Vézelay, she also rigorously put aside part of each day for writing.
Over the course of the twentieth century the Irish-speaking islands off Ireland’s west coast inspired charming and indeed significant books by outsiders. These include John
Millington Synge’s
The Aran Islands (1907) and Robin Flower’s The Western Island or the Great Blasket (1944). Françoise Henry’s Inishkea journals, written it seems with no thought of publication, should now join that list.
Niamh Whitfield mail@niamhwhitfield.com