'Ireland and Denmark are specially to be named': The connections between irish and Danish antiquarians in the nineteenth century

In 1846, the Danish antiquarian, Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae, visited Dublin to discover what Viking artefacts still remained in Ireland. He was hosted by several Irish antiquarians, who were eager to learn from him about the Museum of Northern Antiquities. In the political situations of the 1840s - the so-called 'Schleswig-Holstein question', which led to the First Schleswig-Holstein War; and the claims of Ireland to independence from Britain, resulting in the 1848 Young Irelander rebellion - both Danish and Irish antiquarians used the past to support contemporary political situations. This chapter argues that Worsaae's visit can be seen as an act of diplomacy in which he courted the future support Irish nationalists for Danish claims to Schleswig-Holstein.