Good fossil sites west of Ireland

Amhran Nua

I was thinking about taking the family on a fossil hunting/hiking/fishing/photography/camping/outdoors expedition next summer, are there any good sites where someone could probably find a few nice pieces in the west of Ireland?

Wibbs

The north coast of Mayo where it runs into Sligo is a good un. Loads of beaches there with cliffs and a fair chance of finding something. It's mostly lower carboniferous limestones and shales. Chock full of fossils. The Burren area is protected and from what I recall as a kid not much use for fossils anyway.

Which is also a point. As I kid many moons ago there were far less regulations around about this sorta thing(well back then fossils weren't nearly as valuable on the open market, nor were important fossils stolen like today). I think you're fine if it's stuff washed out of cliffs by erosion. I wouldn't know who to ask though.

In any case, unless you really know what you're at always go for material eroded out, don't try to attempt to extract fossils in situ. Chances are high you'll damage or destroy them.

If you find something spectacular or you feel may be important take a photo of it in situ and report it to the national museum(if you have GPS on your phone log it's position). As in archaeology context is everything. A fossil without context is of a lot less value. If it's eroded out take it to them. If in situ leave alone.

Be careful on beaches/cliffs. Watch the tide. Avoid climbing as limestones and shales are notorious for being crumbly.

Buy a book on fossils for identification. Like I said that neck of the woods is lower carboniferous in age.

Archaeology in this country is criminally undervalued for all the political talk of "culture and heritage". Paleontology is even more undervalued. The largest collection I know of is in the Natural history museum and the vast majority of finds were private collections by Victorian curates and the like. In the 70's I brought a few of my nice finds(a couple better than their own examples) there and the curator at the time(nice chap) told me to bring them home as they'd just lay in a box. Maybe that's changed? Though we have a limited enough spread of geological fossil bearing rocks, there is a lot out there yet to be discovered.

Amhran Nua

Wibbs wrote: »

Archaeology in this country is criminally undervalued for all the political talk of "culture and heritage". Paleontology is even more undervalued. The largest collection I know of is in the Natural history museum and the vast majority of finds were private collections by Victorian curates and the like. In the 70's I brought a few of my nice finds(a couple better than their own examples) there and the curator at the time(nice chap) told me to bring them home as they'd just lay in a box. Maybe that's changed? Though we have a limited enough spread of geological fossil bearing rocks, there is a lot out there yet to be discovered.

Thanks for the advice, it is indeed a shame that archaeology is so badly funded in this country. What we ideally want is one giant, state of the art master exhibition hall or tower, it would pay for itself in a few years from tourist income alone, although I'm not sure how well that would go down with regional museums and so on.

This could double as a centre for research and preservation as well, not just of actual physical finds, but cultural artifacts like stories and music. I've a lot of ideas on extensions to our archaeological policy too, I might open a thread here to get a few more concepts if that's alright.

Also I'm thinking about adding a demand for the return of our artifacts to party policies.