In Ancient Bones, a Reminder That Northern Ireland’s Ghosts Are Never Far
They turned up around Halloween, as a roaring storm gripped the wetlands of Northern Ireland and tilled its ground: human bones, sticking up from the tea-colored water in Bellaghy bog, halfway between Derry and Belfast.The skeletal remains were disconcerting enough. Then investigators saw the flesh.“The skin was as pink as ours,” said Detective Inspector Nikki Deehan, with the Police Service of Northern Ireland.We know now that the remains — extraordinarily well preserved — belonged to a teenage boy from the Iron Age, held together for thousands of years by the preservative power of the peat bog. But in the weeks…
