From the fireplace where my letters to you are burning: Waiting for an apology from the Keeper of Irish Antiquities

How many days has it been since the Keeper of Irish Antiquities claimed that I was trying to defraud the Irish State when I was merely looking to be paid for work they directed me to undertake?



My count upCountup

 Backstory: In a letter dated February 17 2019 Maeve Sikora, Keeper of Irish Antiquities said that “It is completely unacceptable for you to attempt to extract public monies for discharging duties to which you signed up under the terms of the excavation licence.” She appears to believe that I am held in perpetual indentured servitude to her on the basis of a licence application I signed almost two decades ago and that I must carry out her orders on my own time and at my own expense, without expectation of payment for my services.

 I have repeatedly asked for a retraction of her egregious and wounding words and to offer a full, unconditional apology. To date, this has not been forthcoming. On November 27 2019 I published my account of my dispute, along with the full archive of letters we have exchanged. You can read the post here: I got a letter on a lonesome day: The anatomy of a dispute with the Keeper of Irish Antiquities. My hope was to spur either the Chief Archaeologist at the National Monuments Service or the Director of the National Museum of Ireland to step up and help resolve this issue. Unfortunately, they appear to be incapable of the task.

 I have now published this post that counts up from the day the Keeper of Irish Antiquities made her hideous remarks, in the (probably forlorn) hope that these people can be forced into action. In case this post gets slowly buried under further posts to this blog, I've added it as a widget to every page. Just scroll to the end of any page on this blog and you'll see it looking back at you!

Old man with an hourglass by Gonzales Coques (Public domain)

Note
The first portion of the title of this blog post is taken from Bob Dylan's song When the Night Comes Falling from the Sky, taken from his 1985 album Empire Burlesque. But, of course, you knew that.

 #SikoraResign
Location: Belfast, UK

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