Empire of Dirt: time to call time on commercial archaeology in Northern Ireland?
[** If you like this post, please make a donation to the IR&DD project using the button at the end. If you think it is interesting or useful, please re-share via Facebook, Google+, Twitter etc. **] As a consequence of the Drumclay crannog fiasco, Minister Alex Attwood has proposed a wide-ranging review of archaeological practice in Northern Ireland. The scope of this review has yet to be made public, but I would hope that it will be broad enough to consider such matters as the planning process, along with the operation of both the private and state sectors – not just in this case, but in how the practice of archaeology is conducted generally. I have a sneaking suspicion that a path may not be beaten to my door to solicit my opinion – it certainly hasn’t been sought so far. As we all know, this has never stopped me! For this reason this blog post may be regarded as my – deliberately provocative, but no less serious – position paper on what should happen in commercial archaeo...