IT WAS a pleasant surprise to hear of the recovery, on June 11th, of the Suwar Al-Alqalim, aka Kitab Al-Masalik Wa-AlMamalik, a 13th century Arabic manuscript containing 21 maps of the then known world, which was stolen from Dublin's Chester Beatty Library in 1991.
As soon as it has been cleaned and bound, I shall exercise one of my unique privileges as an Irish citizen enjoying the grand tour of the Orient, in Dublin.
Two years ago I visited Kuala Lumpur's grandiose art gallery, then housing the exhibition "1,400 years of Islamic Civilisation".
It was an impressive testimony to the cultural legacies of that austere desert religion spiked Saracen helmets alongside metal goblets from India, swords and armour from Persia. But the section devoted to the Qu'ran held few surprises the immaculately styled Arabic calligraphy and colourful motifs, although lavish, were far inferior to the artistic exuberance of manuscripts on display back in Dublin.
Undoubtedly, the collection Sir Alfred Chester Beatty donated to the State is Ireland's most exotic national treasure.
Partly Irish
Alfred was born in New York in 1875, the youngest of three sons. His ancestry on the paternal side was partly Irish, his great grandparents having lived in Armagh. His mother's family was of staunch old English stock Captain Thomas Bull had arrived in Boston in 1635 and later ancestors were prominent in both the American War of Independence and the Civil War.
After showing himself to be a prodigiously gifted student and graduating as a mining engineer, he headed west to Colorado with $200 in his pocket and a one way ticket, having refused an allowance from his parents to begin a career in mining. He began as an ordinary labourer, or "mucker", at a time when at least a third of the labourers working the Colorado gold fields were Irish.
Beatty quickly moved from being a labourer to a foreman, then to supervisor, to manager and finally an owner. By 1903 he was working as assistant chief engineer with the Guggenheim Exploration Company, signing contracts outside the United States and earning a yearly salary of $27,000.
Beatty's first company, Selection Trust, was formed in 1914, three years after his first wife, Grace Rickard, had died of typhoid fever. Soon after his marriage to Edith Dunn of New York they made the first of many trips to Cairo, where they bought a house, toured the bazaars and bought several illustrated copies of the Qu'ran.
During the great influenza epidemic in 1917 Beatty fell ill and was lucky to survive. On his doctors' advice he took a health cruise and travelled extensively in the Far East, collecting Oriental artefacts.
His business interests likewise expanded at an impressive rate by the 1930s, Selection Trust had ventured into such countries as Serbia, Northern Rhodesia and the Gold Coast. By 1933, Beatty had become a naturalised British citizen.
Lunch with Boland
During the second World War he served on a number of government bodies in the Churchill led Coalition, but by the late 1940s, tiring of life as an entrepreneur and despondent at the atmosphere of post war Britain, he contemplated moving to another country and retiring. To many in Britain his choice of Ireland seemed surprising, but Beatty had visited Dublin in August 1937, staying at the Shelbourne Hotel and enjoying what he regarded as a quaint, old world city.
In 1948 Beatty lunched with Frederick Boland, the Secretary of the Department of External Affairs. Boland was convinced that the young Republic should adopt a more forward looking attitude to the arts.
It had become a matter of some concern that the ferment of cultural activity leading up to Independence was not reflected in post 1921 government policies. Although the Second Dail had appointed a Minister for Fine Arts, it would be nearly 60 years before a similar appointment was made.
In 1950, Beatty moved to Dublin and bought 10 Ailesbury Road. His entire collection of African, Oriental and European art was shipped to Ireland in 250 boxes, weighing an average of 35 tons each. They were stored in the warehouses of Miller and Beatty Ltd, of Grafton Street.
The philanthropic businessman, known on the English social scene as the "Copper King", declared his faith in the Irish people at a time of poverty and mass emigration. More importantly, perhaps, he made a supreme contribution to the country's cultural heritage when Ireland's insular, almost xenophobic, attitude to the arts was a source of outside derision.
The donation of his collection to the State was met with overwhelming enthusiasm and the library was officially opened in 1954. In 1957 Beatty became the first honorary Irish citizen.
Alfred Chester Beatty died in his 94th year in 1968. His funeral service in St Patrick's Cathedral was the first State funeral to honour a person born outside Ireland.
Abiding Goodness
There are times, drifting around the exotic displays in this library, sampling a bountiful array of cultural achievements and pondering the dedication and generosity which made their appreciation by the likes of you and I possible, when a sense of humanity's abiding goodness pervades.
The library's location in the tree lined byways of Ailesbury Road is charming, if somewhat secluded. But if the move to the city next year brings more people in, then the recovery of the Suwar AIalqaim is surely a good omen for even more widespread appreciation by the Irish people.