Robert M Chapple, Archaeologist

Following the publication of John O’Keeffe’s statement on the NIEA’s state of preparedness for dealing with archives from archaeological consultancies in Northern Ireland, I though it advisable to seek out a different perspective. To this end, I contacted Edward Bourke, Senior Archaeologist at the National Monuments Service, within the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. I posed him the same two questions I asked Dr O’Keefe: “I would be grateful if you could confirm what, if any, preparations have been made by the NMS: 1) To investigate the possibility of any of the archaeological consultancies no longer being able to continue in business? 2) To develop contingency plans for the safe retrieval, storage, and curation of the whole range of physical and digital cultural assets, from artefacts, soil samples, paper records, and computer files etc?” Excavation reports being loaded into the Tambour Units I received the following reply, published here in full: ...

[** If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the secure button at the right. If you think it is interesting or useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. To help keep the site in operation, please use the amazon search portal at the right - each purchase earns a small amount of advertising revenue **] Sixty Three Thousand Euros ... or Twelve and a Half pence in old money Stuart Rathbone Godwin's law asserts that "a s an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1" . Although this isn't strictly correct it does neatly highlight how quickly internet discussions can become bad tempered, irrational and vitriolic. Any follower of online archaeological discussion groups will know that one subject that almost always goes off the deep end at an alarming speed is the topic of metal detection. After partaking in several such discussions recently my g...

Rose M. Cleary & Hilary Kelleher. The Collins Press, Cork, 2011. xxiv+456pp. ISBN-13: 9781848891333. £34 ( via Amazon ) or €39.99 (via The Collins Press ). [** If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end. If you think the review is useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] Tullahedy, Co. Tipperary, is a site that (it seems to me, at least) has been hanging around on the edges of knowledge for some time. The earliest mention of the excavations that I can find in my own library is a brief note in Archaeology Ireland from 1998, noting the richness of the recovered finds and the depth of stratigraphy there ( Anon. 1998 ). This mention, confined to the bottom of a single page, related to the initial set of excavations carried out as part of the N7 Nenagh Bypass. At this time the site was partially excavated and the remainder preserved in situ . When the bypass was upgraded the remainder of the ...