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> It is against the law in Ireland to search for archaeological objects using a metal detector unless written permission has been given. Penalties can be up to

> It is against the law in Ireland to search for archaeological objects using a metal detector unless written permission has been given. Penalties can be up to three months in prison or a fine of up to €63,486 (£53,435). Written permission from who? He was on his own farmland. You have to write a plea to the government to request permission to use a metal detector on your own land? And, if that's the case, are such requests usually granted? What's the rationale here, and what harms does this permission-first system aim to prevent? > It is understood, however, that Dunne will not face charges. If it's a bad law that they're making a point of not enforcing, why not repeal the law? So many questions.

DoubleGlazing 2y ago
In the early 80s a couple of lads found the Derrynaflan hoarde. A collection of stunning religious artefacts dating from the 9th century. This resulted in a whole legal mess where they were demanding a payment from the state of what would be arounf €25 million in todays money, after months of legal arguing they got a payout of what would be around €200k today. While this was ongoing there was an explosion in the number of people going out metal detecting for similar items and it's almost certain some items were found and not delcared to the state. So to protect the nations heritage - and we have a lot of it - from being scavenged these strict laws were introduced.
colmmacc 2y ago
The rationale is that while you may own the land, you don't own the artifacts, and the state has an interest in ensuring that history is recorded and preserved professionally. In effect, archeology is a licensed occupation, but then so is cutting hair in most US states. If the story about metal in machinery is true, then really no offense was committed. Using a metal detector to find what you think is a loose horseshoe is fine. The story might also just be a convenient cover, but no-one will really care. In Ireland, authorities tend to be good natured and mostly only out to get egregious offenders. Maybe the metal detector guy has been looking for coins without permission, and it'll be handled at the level of "ah here would you have a bit of cop on".
- cwillu 2y ago
  “In effect, archeology is a licensed occupation, but then so is cutting hair in most US states.” This doesn't strengthen the argument.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - jkaplowitz 2y ago
    I do see some value in having the state license people who make a business of convincing strangers to allow them to use sharp cutting implements on their body in ways that, if not properly maintained and used, could lead to injury, to undesired slow-to-reverse harm to appearance, or to transmission of infestations like head lice. There's plenty of room to disagree on what the specifics of this oversight should involve, but some degree of pre-approval seems very much appropriate.
- ddingus 2y ago
  >The rationale is that while you may own the land, you don't own the artifacts[...] At first I bristled a little, but given a pause to think it through, it makes great sense! Fact is, we as a species did not advance quickly enough to record our origins and a lot of our history. Perhaps this kind of thing always happens. Nobody knows and we have a sample size of one at present. Our history is a shared thing by our very human condition and the nature of history. Of course we benefit overall with policy like this even if at times a few of us feel wronged.
  - mr_toad 2y ago
    A lot of people throughout history thought the world would end long before this because an issue. They would have laughed at the idea of preserving things for thousands of years. Maybe in another thousand years post-apocalyptic scavengers will wonder why we tried to preserve history while simultaneously destroying our future.
  - landedfolk 2y ago
    "Owning" the land is more of a license from a government. It is a taxi medallion you trade with other people for money. Lots of stuff you cant do on your own land without permission.
profsummergig 2y ago
So much will never be found thanks to this law.
- p1necone 2y ago
  Random amateurs digging stuff up is next to useless from an archaeological perspective - once you've disturbed the earth and taken stuff out of the ground you've already destroyed so much contextual information. Even professional trained archaeologists intentionally only excavate parts of sites when they know there's more to find because we expect there to be much better technology in the future. Amateurs digging for artifacts are destroying knowledge, not discovering it.
  - avsteele 2y ago
    I mean, this incident should call your assumptions about this into question. Yes, some might be lost by random digging. But if it would not otherwise ever be found then nothing has been lost.
    - extraduder_ire 2y ago
      If something's been in the ground for hundreds of years, it'll still be there for a few hundred more. There's little reason to want to maximize the amount you're excavating right now. Unless your goal is to find treasure and profit somehow. I think the greater concern for artifact loss is someone doing earthworks, finding something, and then not reporting it because they don't want to wait for archaeologists to check out the site.
- esperent 2y ago
  So much will never be looted or destroyed because of this law. As an Irish person who has spent some time working as an archaeological grunt (basically, I dig then as soon as I spot something, pass it over to a real archaeologist) - this is a hugely important law. Because, for large developers, the immediate response on finding something is to hide/destroy it so that they don't lose money while an archaeological survey is carried out. And for landowners, I wager a majority are likely to keep it as a curio if it doesn't look valuable. The fact is that owning a piece of farmland doesn't give you ownership of our country's heritage. Nor should it. You get to raise cows on the land. You don't get to mine it (without permission), you don't get to turn it into a housing development (without permission), and you don't get to turn it into an archaeological dig site (without permission).
avianlyric 2y ago
From the end of the article: > The NMI also wishes to remind the public that unregulated use of detection devices causes serious damage to Ireland’s archaeological heritage. If you want to know more, the NMI have a detailed article explaining the rationale https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/The-Law-on-Metal-Detecting-in-Ireland https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/The-Law-on-...
AlotOfReading 2y ago
These laws are a balancing act between heritage conservation and civil rights like allowing people to enjoy metal detecting as a hobby. Without these laws and effective enforcement of them, looters show up with bulldozers, metal detectors, and work crews in the middle of the night to dig up anything they can sell to what's now a billion dollar global market. I've spent a lot of time as an archaeologist looking at the aftermath and doing public education to stop it. Antiquities laws are generally designed to make antiquities "visible" to the state while also giving authorities teeth if they need to go after these sorts of people. To do that, there's a whole host of laws and conventions that require reporting virtually everything and align the financial incentives/penalties to ensure valuations on any antiquities discovered are as reasonably accurate as possible. It makes things a little inconvenient for the hobbyists, but I personally find that a reasonable tradeoff given the damage that otherwise occurs.
- vivekd 2y ago
  It seems to me that the evil of having haphazard laws that are enforced arbitrarily on discretion is worse than the evil of heritage loss. This solution is much worse than the cure. Yes it's hard for governments to write narrowly tailored laws to achieve narrowly tailored objectives while avoiding loopholes. That doesn't mean they should devolve into making overly broad laws and then enforcing those laws arbitrarily. That's just behaving like a tyrant.
- gadders 2y ago
  >>These laws are a balancing act between heritage conservation and civil rights like allowing people to enjoy metal detecting as a hobby. Without these laws and effective enforcement of them, looters show up with bulldozers, metal detectors, and work crews in the middle of the night to dig up anything they can sell to what's now a billion dollar global market. I've spent a lot of time as an archaeologist looking at the aftermath and doing public education to stop it. That doesn't seem to happen in England, which allows metal detecting.
  - helsinkiandrew 2y ago
    > That doesn't seem to happen in England, which allows metal detecting. In England you need permission of the landowner (or which ever authority is responsible for a piece of public land) and must report any archeological finds. There's a lot of illegal metal detecting at night - "Nighthawking", and fairly tough convictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighthawking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighthawking https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-68445207 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-68445207
fsckboy 2y ago
>You have to write a plea to the government to request permission to use a metal detector on your own land? no, that's not the law (because you changed what you quoted). the law is "you can't use a metal detector on your own property to search for archaeological objects without permission." You can use it as this farmer said he did as part of working your farm, although if you do find an archeological object I think you are required to leave it in place which he did not do. There are other restrictions concerning public lands and registered sites of some description.
TheRealPomax 2y ago
There is no "his own farmland". All land in Ireland is owned by Ireland. You don't magically become a sovereign of your own plot just because you have a title deed, Ireland still ultimately owns that land. You're just granted most of the rights relating to use of that land. But not all rights. And archeological finds fall in the "not all rights" category.
antonvs 2y ago
> your own land Your assumptions about what this means are parochial. Think a bit deeper about what ownership really means in this context.

DoubleGlazing 2y ago

In the early 80s a couple of lads found the Derrynaflan hoarde. A collection of stunning religious artefacts dating from the 9th century. This resulted in a whole legal mess where they were demanding a payment from the state of what would be arounf €25 million in todays money, after months of legal arguing they got a payout of what would be around €200k today. While this was ongoing there was an explosion in the number of people going out metal detecting for similar items and it's almost certain some items were found and not delcared to the state. So to protect the nations heritage - and we have a lot of it - from being scavenged these strict laws were introduced.

colmmacc 2y ago

The rationale is that while you may own the land, you don't own the artifacts, and the state has an interest in ensuring that history is recorded and preserved professionally. In effect, archeology is a licensed occupation, but then so is cutting hair in most US states. If the story about metal in machinery is true, then really no offense was committed. Using a metal detector to find what you think is a loose horseshoe is fine. The story might also just be a convenient cover, but no-one will really care. In Ireland, authorities tend to be good natured and mostly only out to get egregious offenders. Maybe the metal detector guy has been looking for coins without permission, and it'll be handled at the level of "ah here would you have a bit of cop on".

cwillu 2y ago
“In effect, archeology is a licensed occupation, but then so is cutting hair in most US states.” This doesn't strengthen the argument.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- jkaplowitz 2y ago
  I do see some value in having the state license people who make a business of convincing strangers to allow them to use sharp cutting implements on their body in ways that, if not properly maintained and used, could lead to injury, to undesired slow-to-reverse harm to appearance, or to transmission of infestations like head lice. There's plenty of room to disagree on what the specifics of this oversight should involve, but some degree of pre-approval seems very much appropriate.
ddingus 2y ago
>The rationale is that while you may own the land, you don't own the artifacts[...] At first I bristled a little, but given a pause to think it through, it makes great sense! Fact is, we as a species did not advance quickly enough to record our origins and a lot of our history. Perhaps this kind of thing always happens. Nobody knows and we have a sample size of one at present. Our history is a shared thing by our very human condition and the nature of history. Of course we benefit overall with policy like this even if at times a few of us feel wronged.
- mr_toad 2y ago
  A lot of people throughout history thought the world would end long before this because an issue. They would have laughed at the idea of preserving things for thousands of years. Maybe in another thousand years post-apocalyptic scavengers will wonder why we tried to preserve history while simultaneously destroying our future.
- landedfolk 2y ago
  "Owning" the land is more of a license from a government. It is a taxi medallion you trade with other people for money. Lots of stuff you cant do on your own land without permission.

profsummergig 2y ago

So much will never be found thanks to this law.

p1necone 2y ago
Random amateurs digging stuff up is next to useless from an archaeological perspective - once you've disturbed the earth and taken stuff out of the ground you've already destroyed so much contextual information. Even professional trained archaeologists intentionally only excavate parts of sites when they know there's more to find because we expect there to be much better technology in the future. Amateurs digging for artifacts are destroying knowledge, not discovering it.
- avsteele 2y ago
  I mean, this incident should call your assumptions about this into question. Yes, some might be lost by random digging. But if it would not otherwise ever be found then nothing has been lost.
  - extraduder_ire 2y ago
    If something's been in the ground for hundreds of years, it'll still be there for a few hundred more. There's little reason to want to maximize the amount you're excavating right now. Unless your goal is to find treasure and profit somehow. I think the greater concern for artifact loss is someone doing earthworks, finding something, and then not reporting it because they don't want to wait for archaeologists to check out the site.
esperent 2y ago
So much will never be looted or destroyed because of this law. As an Irish person who has spent some time working as an archaeological grunt (basically, I dig then as soon as I spot something, pass it over to a real archaeologist) - this is a hugely important law. Because, for large developers, the immediate response on finding something is to hide/destroy it so that they don't lose money while an archaeological survey is carried out. And for landowners, I wager a majority are likely to keep it as a curio if it doesn't look valuable. The fact is that owning a piece of farmland doesn't give you ownership of our country's heritage. Nor should it. You get to raise cows on the land. You don't get to mine it (without permission), you don't get to turn it into a housing development (without permission), and you don't get to turn it into an archaeological dig site (without permission).

avianlyric 2y ago

From the end of the article: > The NMI also wishes to remind the public that unregulated use of detection devices causes serious damage to Ireland’s archaeological heritage. If you want to know more, the NMI have a detailed article explaining the rationale https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/The-Law-on-Metal-Detecting-in-Ireland https://www.museum.ie/en-IE/Collections-Research/The-Law-on-...

AlotOfReading 2y ago

These laws are a balancing act between heritage conservation and civil rights like allowing people to enjoy metal detecting as a hobby. Without these laws and effective enforcement of them, looters show up with bulldozers, metal detectors, and work crews in the middle of the night to dig up anything they can sell to what's now a billion dollar global market. I've spent a lot of time as an archaeologist looking at the aftermath and doing public education to stop it. Antiquities laws are generally designed to make antiquities "visible" to the state while also giving authorities teeth if they need to go after these sorts of people. To do that, there's a whole host of laws and conventions that require reporting virtually everything and align the financial incentives/penalties to ensure valuations on any antiquities discovered are as reasonably accurate as possible. It makes things a little inconvenient for the hobbyists, but I personally find that a reasonable tradeoff given the damage that otherwise occurs.

vivekd 2y ago
It seems to me that the evil of having haphazard laws that are enforced arbitrarily on discretion is worse than the evil of heritage loss. This solution is much worse than the cure. Yes it's hard for governments to write narrowly tailored laws to achieve narrowly tailored objectives while avoiding loopholes. That doesn't mean they should devolve into making overly broad laws and then enforcing those laws arbitrarily. That's just behaving like a tyrant.
gadders 2y ago
>>These laws are a balancing act between heritage conservation and civil rights like allowing people to enjoy metal detecting as a hobby. Without these laws and effective enforcement of them, looters show up with bulldozers, metal detectors, and work crews in the middle of the night to dig up anything they can sell to what's now a billion dollar global market. I've spent a lot of time as an archaeologist looking at the aftermath and doing public education to stop it. That doesn't seem to happen in England, which allows metal detecting.
- helsinkiandrew 2y ago
  > That doesn't seem to happen in England, which allows metal detecting. In England you need permission of the landowner (or which ever authority is responsible for a piece of public land) and must report any archeological finds. There's a lot of illegal metal detecting at night - "Nighthawking", and fairly tough convictions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighthawking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nighthawking https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-68445207 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-humber-68445207

fsckboy 2y ago

>You have to write a plea to the government to request permission to use a metal detector on your own land? no, that's not the law (because you changed what you quoted). the law is "you can't use a metal detector on your own property to search for archaeological objects without permission." You can use it as this farmer said he did as part of working your farm, although if you do find an archeological object I think you are required to leave it in place which he did not do. There are other restrictions concerning public lands and registered sites of some description.

TheRealPomax 2y ago

There is no "his own farmland". All land in Ireland is owned by Ireland. You don't magically become a sovereign of your own plot just because you have a title deed, Ireland still ultimately owns that land. You're just granted most of the rights relating to use of that land. But not all rights. And archeological finds fall in the "not all rights" category.

antonvs 2y ago

> your own land Your assumptions about what this means are parochial. Think a bit deeper about what ownership really means in this context.