When the Police Service of Northern Ireland received a call about human remains in October 2023, they thought there was a good chance they were about to see a crime scene. The October 2023 tip was about a body sticking out at Bellaghy Bog in Londonderry County, Northern Ireland, per Smithsonian Magazine. Police officers found that parts of the skin on the body were still pink and intact, and the kidney was still malleable when touched, Deehan said in an interview with the Financial Times.
When skeletal remains were first found in Northern Ireland, police did not know whether the bones were from a recent death or maybe from a few years prior, but no one was expecting to hear the remains were actually between 2,000 and 2,500 years-old.
The Bellaghy ‘boy in the bog’ has been hailed as one of the most exciting and enlightening cultural and historical discoveries ever unearthed in Northern Ireland.