Gallagh guy

The male bog body of a 20-year-old known as Gallagh Man, who was killed in Iron Age between 470 and 120 B.C.E., is housed at the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin. Discovered in Co. Galway in 1821, the mummy was not acquired by the Royal Irish Academy until 1829. By then it had greatly deteriorated, which is why it is in a relatively poor state of preservation today. The family who found it while digging their peat was reluctant to part with it:

An enterprising, if somewhat morbid family, the O’Kellys saw an opportunity to make some money. They re-buried the bog body and then charged visitors a small fee to excavate and view it. The remains soon became a macabre tourist attraction and the O’Kellys continued to exhume and re-inter the bog body for the next eight years.

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