Sir, - Anne Byrne's illuminating report on the search for the Ark of the Convenant (May 30th), inadvertently suggests that "British Israelities" believed that the Ark was buried along with the Princess Tamer Tephi, "the tender twig" (Ezekiel xvii 22-24), eldest daughter of Zedekiah, last King of Judah, at Tara.
While some thought the Ark might be at Tara, (the Ark was described in detail as been buried in Mount Nebo in 2 Maccabees ii 4-8) it was more apparent that they sought something else of great value.
Shortly before the fall of Jerusalem and the Jewish deportation to Babylon, the Old Testament recounts a command from God to Jeremiah to buy a field in Anathoth (Jeremiah xxxii). It was these deeds to the land that the British Israelites suspected were buried at Tara. Their significance, if rediscovered' would be to prove the legal right of the Princess Tamer Tephi and her heirs (the British royal family) to the throne of David and the land of Palestine.
For all their compelling and detailed insights and theories they don't seem to have reckoned with either Maude Gonne or the subsequent collapse of the British Empire. - Yours, etc. Desmond White,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 14.