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 Archaeological finds & archives in Northern Ireland | A reply from Dr JohnO’Keeffe 

Originally posted online on 28 March 2014 at rmchapple.blogspot.com

(http://rmchapple.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/archaeological-finds-archives-in.html) 

Samples as far as the eye can see ... 

In a recent piece  on the current financial health of commercial archaeology in NorthernIreland I speculated that the Northern Ireland Environment Agency (NIEA ) may not have acoherent plan in place to deal with the heritage implications of one of the commercialarchaeological companies going bankrupt. This is a serious consideration, as my research hadshown that the financial viability of all of  these four consultancies has suffered markedly inthe period from 2008 to 2012. Without repeating the entirety of the previous post, thesituation can be best summed up in the Net Worth, averaged across all companies where thedata was available. This indicated that the mean value was £192k in 2008, rising slightly to£209k the following year. However, this dropped sharply to an average of £6.5k in 2010 andto a mere £2.3k in 2011. It made a slight return, reaching an average of £9.5k in 2012. Howeverthese figures mask actual negative Net Worth for two companies in 2011, and for one of them

in 2010. If one or more of these companies were to enter administration or file for bankruptcy,I felt that the implications for a significant portion of our shared excavated heritage ofNorthern Ireland (and for the Republic of Ireland, too) could be catastrophic. A report by Hull(2011) estimated that the four commercial companies together held approximately 1.47 millionitems from archaeological excavations, along with large paper archives of original field notes,context sheets, scale drawings etc., along with digital archives of various forms. The vastmajority of this material has little intrinsic value, but it does have significant cultural worth.My fear is that, if one of these companies folds, those charged with selling off the assets to payoff the banks and other sundry creditors will be immune to the charms of ‘important’ but worthless boxes of pottery sherds and flint assemblages. The whole lot could easily end up atthe city dump. This would be nothing less than an intellectual and cultural catastrophe forNorthern Ireland. 

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endless shelves filled with artefacts and samples In the interests of fairness, I sent an email to Dr John O’Keeffe, Assistant Director/PrincipalInspector of Historic Monuments at NIEA, Built Heritage. Unfortunately, he was unable torespond by the time of publication (February 20th 2014), but I did receive a reply a week later(27th February). He conf irmed that this issue ‘has been discussed in-house and withcolleagues from other administrations in general terms’ and that is an item of genuine concernto both the professional archaeological and non-specialist spheres. The remainder of his replyis given in full: “However, while discussing the issue is relatively easy, identifying a solution is more

challenging. A fundamental issue around what happens to the material arising fromarchaeological excavations is that of ownership. As I am sure you are aware, the currentpractice in Northern Ireland is that the material extracted from the ground belongs to theperson or persons who owned the ground at that time. Artefacts, samples and other materialderived from the excavation is therefore likely to belong to the landowner, not thearchaeological company who may currently hold that material. In the case of written or digitalmaterial, there is a similar issue of ownership, but one which I cannot answer as the ownershipof that material may well depend upon the form of contract between thearchaeologist/archaeological company and their client. This Department has received writtenreports (i.e. hard copy) for most of the excavations that have been conducted in NorthernIreland over the past decade or so. These reports are retained as part of our Monuments andBuildings Record. This is the only element of the overall site archive that we currently insist is

delivered to this Department. Management of material arising from archaeologicalexcavations, i.e. the fuller archive, has been a key work area for my team in recent years.Following the assembly debate on this matter in 2012 and subsequent studies and analysis in2013, a Joint Working Group was established between the Department of the Environmentand the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure (including representatives of NationalMuseums Northern Ireland) to bring forward potential solutions to this matter. The Joint Working Group has now completed its analysis, and officials are reporting back to theirrespective ministers at this time.” 

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 Archives ... The chief comment I would make at this time is that since I moved to Belfast in 1997 (nearly17 years ago) this has been the acknowledged situation. In those 17 years nothing has changed.It was bad back then, but the Celtic Tiger  years only exacerbated the situation. One impact ofthe post-2008 collapse was that the financial pressures on commercial companies to store allthis material became more and more onerous and burdensome. While it is a statement muchto be welcomed, to hear that the NIEA are now putting plans in place 'to bring forwardpotential solutions to this matter', I fear it may be too little, too late. While a recentinvestigation by  Kevin Magee for BBC News NI (here) has shown images of one warehouseowned by an archaeological consultancy, piled high with artefacts, archives, and samples, it

may be too late for others. I have written before about persistent rumours that one companycalled up previous clients and instructed them to come collect 'their' artefacts or facean annual bill for curation. To the best of my knowledge, a number of construction companiessent over representatives to collect the material. I am given to understand that largecollections, from several significant excavations, were loaded up and driven away. I'd love tothink that much of this material can be recovered for future study by students and academics, but I genuinely believe that this material is lost forever. Even if it hasn't been dumped in thenearest landfill site, the chances that it is being carefully cared for - even if can be found - arepretty slim. I should point out that, even if true, the actions of this company were wholly withinthe law. It doesn't make it any less repugnant, shameful, and an act of cultural vandalism. AsI say, I welcome John O’Keeffe's words and look forward to seeing some action on them beforemore culturally significant material slips from our grasp and is lost forever. Reference Hull, D. 2011  Archaeological archives in Northern Ireland: Legislation, guidance andcomparison with other jurisdictions.  Research and Information Service Research Paper(NIAR 621-1). Northern Ireland Assembly, Belfast.