This article is from page 8 of the 2013-06-25 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
A SKULL discovered in Quin almost five years ago may have belonged to a compulsive pipe smoking woman, who died in her 40’s more than 300 years ago.
The human remains, which were discovered in Quin in August of 2008, have been shrouded in mystery for the last five years. However, research carried out by TVAS Ireland, who discovered the remains, had shed some light on the historic discovery.
While many questions remain unanswered, the possible life story of the Quin body has started to emerge.
“We now know that the jaw bone had typical female traits – so we can cautiously say that the body was a female.
“We know that the person also suffered from arthritis – part of the bones discovered were from the spine and there was evidence of the bones rubbing together.
“So we are fairly sure that the person would have had severe neck pain,” said Edel Ruttle of TVAS.
“From the jaw bone we noticed a third molar – or wisdom tooth. So we are confident that the body was aged somewhere between 21 and 40 years of age. Interestingly, we also saw a clay pipe semi-circle on the body’s teeth, this is consistent to a person holding a clay pipe in her mouth almost constantly.
“So not only was this person a smoker – they would have had to hold the clay pipe in their mouth for hours and hours every day to make marks consistent with the ones we have discovered.”
Despite these discoveries, it is still unclear why the body was buried in that spot and what religious the woman was.
One theory maintains that the woman was a social outcast of some sort, which is why she was buried on the edge of a disused Catholic grave – and not in the regular Catholic or Protestant graveyards which were in use in Quin at that time.
“She is buried in an East/West lie – which suggest that it was, at least, a partially standard burial, but the she is buried on the very edge of the cemetery – probably after the cemetery went out of use. So it’s difficult to know,”continued Edel.
“It is possible that she was a marginal figure.
“Maybe she wasn’t buried in the graveyard in Quin Friary because of some social standing – or lack of social standing.
“These are possibilities, but we don’t know for sure. There is still a lot of mystery surrounding this body.”