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21st March 2006, 03:13 PM
Sounds a bit dodgy, what happened to senior supervisors? Seems to be a loophole position with all of the responsibility but without the pay or a legal leg to stand on if it all goes ***s up.
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21st March 2006, 06:00 PM
Basically the score is this:
There is a lack of directors in Ireland, as they wont license UK types usually unitl they have made you dance 6 times at interveiw or until they know you dont work for the big UK firms.
You work as a director under the lisence of the lisenced director, still with me?
This way they can get one director to direct a massive project using the loophole that every other director works under one lisence for the whole scheme held by the lisenced director.
Now you would think the buck stops with lisenced director, yeah! Well it dosnt and if as an assitant director you get into a sticky situation arranged by the license holder you are conveinetly got rid of and hey presto the licensed director gets off scot free and the project license is still held.
It stinks it really does you are for all intensive purposes disposable and you have to do what the licenced director tells you and most of them suck. You basically have no room for manover.
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22nd March 2006, 10:46 AM
Don't tar all Irish archaeologists with the same brush trowelhead. Quality of work is exactly the same as in the U.K. - i.e. some people are good, some are not so good, some are downright awful, and some are fantastic.
If you are worried about it, contact somebody here who has the knowledge of the licensing system to answer your questions based on the current legal situation. The National Monuments Act has been amended since 2002, and has changed the licencing situation. I suggest contacting the I.A.I. for a start.
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23rd March 2006, 08:19 PM
Hmmm. I wasn't particulalry enthralled with Duchas or some of the excavations I worked on in Ireland either... I'm sure there's some good tho.
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25th March 2006, 04:40 PM
Is this because you have to be Irish to be a licensed director? Maybe this is one of the disadvantages of keeping a closed shop.
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25th March 2006, 06:41 PM
Quote:quote:Originally posted by Oxbeast
Is this because you have to be Irish to be a licensed director? Maybe this is one of the disadvantages of keeping a closed shop.
Well in the sense that the Irish consider themselves to be Citizens of the World, I guess that is true, but otherwise you are misinformed....
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27th March 2006, 10:26 AM
No you don't have to be Irish to be licence eligible. Where did you hear that?
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27th March 2006, 11:29 AM
The Irish system requires you to know your Irish archaeology if you are going to be running sites. I know a few 'foreign directors' in Eire, as well as a few who failed to become licensed due to gaps in their knowledge (for those who are not familiar- you need to know your chronologies, artefact types, site types, i.e. difference between a ringed inclosure and and ringed fort). Never came across or saw any racist or nationalist connotations in Irish archaeology.
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27th March 2006, 01:49 PM
Trowelhead - I know about your situation and have read your stuff. While I think you were treated very badly, it IS NOT the case that you have to dance in circles to get your licence if you're not Irish.
I'm not Irish and got my licence on my second attempt. I failed first time because I did not know my sources and references. While the system may be flawed at times, in my opinion it is only right that to become a director a certain level of competence is proved. (The nature of such proof has been debated over and over and I wont get into it here).
There is a lot of banging on on this site about how crap Ireland is to its archaeologists but to be honest having spent many more years back across the pond, I have to say it is very similar on both sides of the water.
Your experience was an awful one, but please dont tar the whole country with that one brush.
