What a surprise, I found your article by accident while looking for another job oportunities:))
I’m wondering if You remember me:) We studied together

And by the way, you have deam right about archaeology, that is why I really want to quit and go back to Poland. Maybe, someday…

Good luck with new job!!

Justka

I myself am an archaeologist with several years experience of work in Ireland, although I’m English. I have a number of complaints about the NRA situation in Ireland. This mostly centres on the fact that their archaeologists represent a developer - nay the largest developer in Ireland - and are, or believe they are, in charge of on-site methodology and the extent to which sites are excavated. To me it is intolerable to have such power in the hands of developers, and hope to god you get one of the more understanding and conciencious ones - their practices vary across their sectors.

I have to point out, however, that working in the rain on pointless jobs like you mention is not, in fact, their fault, or their expectation. I believe that the option is always there for us to not work but our employers are not going to allow that (as they won’t get paid) and most people on site would rather tolerate the crappy conditions so that they, also, can get paid. It’s all about the money. Which is why you, and I, are here.

Regarding the contintental site methodology, I wonder are you talking about research or commercial excavations? Possibly you mean that there is no difference? I am under the impression (and I would appreciate being corrected) that most of your archaeology in Poland tends to be on known upstanding sites comprising positive features (deposits, walls etc). Irish sites tend to be previously inknown sites, the extents of which are not exactly known prior to open-area excavation. Box-grid type archaeology is very familiar from older type excavations in the UK and Ireland. Do you mean that the topsoil is removed in small 10×10m boxes by machine, leaving 1-2m baulks in between? If so then I am sure you can see the problem that this causes in terms of accessing these baulks with a machine after you have resolved these boxes. I hate to think what the flooding situation would be with all our rain too, without anywhere for the water to drain in those boxes. Perhaps you mean that the site is stripped by machine totally, and then (presuming your large site is absolutely covered by archaeological feaures) the whole site is cleaned before those features aredealt with? I have not come across this situation, as all large sites I have worked on are dealt with in smaller bite-size areas (if not as small as 10 x 10m) which are resolved before moving on. If this is the situation you mean then I have to agree that your director must have been two sandwiches short of a picnic, but it sounds more likely to me that you have spent, like most of us, too much time trowelling back without due recognition for the hard job you have done, and are grinding an axe that you have had been crafting during all that long time. Perhaps it is time we re-appraised out techniques over here, but it’s patronising having someone from another country tell us that the way we have managed to get along in dificult circumstances is totally wrong, and that we should do it differently (that is an attitude on site that comes from Polish, English, Swedish and any number of other foreign nationals, not what I am accusing you of).

Commercial archaeology in Ireland is an interesting choice for study for anyone outside of Ireland. You have to, though, appreciate that for several years we have been rescuing data from literally 1000’s of sites every year for several years due to the boom in development. This takes alot of staff, and most of them will not stay in the profession, as you have not, because the conditions are demanding, tough, and most often tedious.

This means that there has been a huge lack of sufficiently trained people. It is all too frequently the case that the number of people who cannot communicate in English out-number those that can. I don’t want to turn this into something else, but this situation is impossible given the numbers of staff who can’t fully communicate about the archaeology, and this is completely due to the desperate need for staff. Fortunately or unfortunately that is now changing and the work is drying out. The lack of recognition you refer to is unfortunate, but sometimes understandble (I don’t mean that it makes it right).

I have worked with many hundreds of people in the time I have worked here, and all of us (I was the same) have started off giving out about the conditions, the bosses, the NRA and everything but the kitchen sink (because there isn’t one). In that time I have learned that there are many reasons for doing what we do, and that frequently the bosses are guilty of making the wrong choices. Hey I’m sure your new profession will have some of these problems, but at least you’ll have a kitchen sink

I mean it would be good to know before

Usually I inform somebody if I am goind to use something from someone’s website or blog

but afterall it was good so I am glad that I could somehow participate in Irish archaeology studies