Draconian funding cuts endanger the future of the heritage sector

Riamfada

heritagecouncil.ie wrote:

Monday 13th December: Punitive cuts, announced in last Tuesday’s Budget, will decimate the heritage sector and close many small enterprises that are dependent on it. This will have detrimental effects on both our national heritage and the quality of our tourism offering, according to the Heritage Council.
The Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government’s Heritage Unit, which has responsibility for protected structures, including world heritage sites, suffered a 77% budget cut. National Parks and Wildlife, whose remit includes the protection of our natural heritage and running all our national parks, suffered a 56% cut. The Heritage Council, whose role is to protect, preserve and enhance Ireland’s national heritage, suffered a 47% cut. This is on top of a 30% cut in 2010.
Speaking about the situation, Chief Executive of the Heritage Council, Michael Starrett commented, “We are extremely concerned about the disproportionate nature of the cuts to the Heritage sector. While the heritage sector recognises that it must share the burden of the cuts required to tackle the country’s economic crisis, the cuts announced last Tuesday are completely disproportionate in comparison to other Departmental cuts. As a result, the future of heritage initiatives nationwide which have created hundreds of jobs, empowered local communities and enhanced the value of heritage as a tourism resource, are severely threatened".

“In 2009, over three million overseas visitors engaged in cultural/historical visits while in Ireland, and spent an estimated €1.9 billion while here. In particular, 76% of tourists identified landscape and nature as the primary reason for visiting Ireland, and heritage is what defines the uniqueness of a country. Funding will now no longer be available to protect and manage our iconic buildings, unique and threatened species, landscapes, cultural collections and rare artifacts, or indeed to support local communities in taking care of their everyday heritage”.
The majority of counties in Ireland have a County Heritage Plan which is prepared by Local Heritage Fora on behalf of the local people and the Local Authority. Research conducted in September 2010 by economist Jim Power examined the economic value of these County Heritage Plans. The implementation of these plans between 2004 and 2008 at a cost of € 6.15m supported the creation of 1,012 full-time jobs in small businesses across the regions, with an estimated return of €30.1 million to the economy. Between 2004 and 2008, the €6.15m that the Heritage Council invested over 26 local authority areas led to an additional investment of around €10 million from other sources.

Looking at the economic impact of an event such as the Irish Walled Towns Day held in Youghal during National Heritage Week, KPMG analysts found that support of €16,000 to the Irish Walled Towns Network for the day brought a return of €480,000 in to the local economy.

Our shared heritage is the country’s inheritance that we only get to borrow for a time, enjoy, and benefit enormously from but we have an obligation as a people to pass it on to future generations, Mr. Starrett said. These punitive cuts put at risk, not just jobs which are critically important, but also vulnerable aspects of the nation’s unique natural and cultural heritage which now may be lost for ever to the country.

“At this point, the day to day implications of the cuts are hard to fully estimate. What is clear from the Heritage Council’s standing is that we will no longer be in a position to provide support for local community groups, non-governmental organisations, charities, individuals, small businesses, local authorities and others. This will make it extremely difficult for the survival of the wider heritage profession of conservators, thatchers, ecologists, archaeologists, conservation architects, museum curators and other specialist work such as researchers and data collectors.
We cannot talk about the importance of marketing our heritage and promoting tourism if we cut the funding to those who work tirelessly behind the scenes to care for our heritage. The reality is that these unique heritage skills may now be lost to the nation along with the heritage assets and memory that these represent. We will all be poorer economically, environmentally and socially as a result”, added Mr. Starrett.

Media Queries:
Michelle Guinan, MKC Communications 01 7038604 / 086 3846630
Isabell Smyth, Heritage Council, 0879676889
Note to editor:
In 2009 €114,000 was offered to 19 building conservation projects. Each grant required at least as much money again to be expended on the project (50% match funding). This represents a minimum two-times multiplier for the spend from the public purse. These grants resulted in the direct employment of at least 5 people per year.
In 2010 a total of €600,000 was spent on conservation works to significant churches and cathedrals of all denominations. This single scheme created direct employment for 16 people.
Conservation works to our historic walled town defences (such as in Kilkenny, Cashel, Drogheda, Dublin city, Wexford) ,will be scaled back with the loss of 25 contracting and supervisory jobs.
A cessation in grants to historic buildings and thatched houses will see this iconic vernacular architecture put at risk and the loss of highly skilled thatchers.
The Irish Strategic Archaeological Research Programme allocated €2 million to advanced collaborative research in 2008-10. External review considered this scheme to be ‘a spectacular success and a model for other countries to follow’. This created research posts for 25 young researchers making sense of the vast amounts of archaeological information generated during the recent boom. The survival of this scheme is now questionable.
The Heritage Council is the statutory body charged with identifying, protecting, preserving and enhancing Ireland’s national heritage. National heritage includes Monuments, Archaeological objects, Heritage objects, Architectural heritage, Flora, Fauna, Wildlife habitats, Landscapes, Seascapes, Wrecks, Geology, Heritage gardens and parks, and Inland waterways.
Established under the Heritage Act 1995, and operating under the aegis of the Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the Heritage Council provides advice to the Minister, and partners and networks with Local Authorities and a wide range of other organisations and individuals to promote Ireland’s heritage.

Source

So now that the budget out, roadways and big projects are finishing up and with the introduction of fees in third level a near certainty where will archaeology be in 10 years? The recruitment ban wont be going anywhere for the next 4 years at least, post graduate funding options are dropping as is university funding.

I have heard people say that things will pick up but never as good as they were before.I think people over estimate the importance of heritage, archaeology and the viability of archeology as a sustainable commercial profession.

Also, considering the high level of PHD & Director unemployment, anyone not at that level with years of field experience will have no chance of getting work.

Interested to see what everyone else thinks. Personally I think archaeology in its current form was a bi-product of a false developer led economy. Is it fair to say to people that there are jobs or will be jobs in archaeology in the future.

Smartypantsdig

There is no doubt that commercial archaeology was driven by development. The funding cuts are a major blow to the sector but I still maintain that there is work out there but it does require an amount of flexibility. This is not for everyone, I realise, but if you really love the profession you will endeavour.

I have managed to continue working due to the fact I have a proven record in the field. I know a few more people in this case. I actually was in the position of being able to pass work on to people I know. It must be heart-breaking for recent graduates who cannot get work in the sector but I remember when I finished my undergrad, long before the boom, worrying if I could ever pursue my chosen career. I did happen. I believe it will happen again but there will never be the same levels of positions,

katarin

Archaeology continues as a viable career option in countries where developer led archaeology isn't the employer (I've had lots of American archaeologists tell me that they wished they could make a career out of just digging, without having to follow a specialism; the same is true of most European countries, Australia etc.).

Perhaps the drop in jobs in lead to a drop in the number of people doing archaeology in university, but that doesn't mean that it won't be taken up by people who still want to work in the area (it's not all about digging and it's definatly not all about digging in Ireland). Perhaps the people who take it up in the future will be more suited to the profession. It has to be said that lots of people who have done archaeology in the last 20 years at university might have done something else if they hadn't seen an immediate job as a result.

Riamfada

Its clear though that the drop in employment opportunities is across all facets of archeology. I personally know a few unemployed PHD graduates who cannot get into further research positions and almost all MA graduates most with multiple research and commercial excavation experience.

While field archaeology has taken the biggest hit, many pursued archaeology to engage with the heritage and tourism sector not simply field or research. Field archaeology was never a viable career option and many are not suited to academics.

I think the article above is more related to cuts in the heritage and tourism sector than more traditional archaeology.

katarin

Interested to see what everyone else thinks. Personally I think archaeology in its current form was a bi-product of a false developer led economy. Is it fair to say to people that there are jobs or will be jobs in archaeology in the future.

I agree about the article, I should have made it clearer that I was responding more generally to what was posted underneath, particularly this quote ^^

RollYerOwn

Decimation (in its original context of reducing the number by one tenth) doesn't even come close.

Whilst it is true that the numbers employed in commercial archaeology were not sustainable in the height of the boom, there are perhaps some deeper running issues with the sheer scale of the decline in employment in this sector, which has so far been unrecorded.

There might never be a time again when there were not enough archaeologists in the country to do the amount of work required, as there will undoubtedly never be that level of work again, but given the collapse of the profession, the realisation of the low career pyramid and the lack of further advancement, I believe the professional commercial archaeologist will be, no pun intended, a thing of the past.:rolleyes:

It is clear that the attitudes of third level institutions in Ireland is not to train archaeologists, they teach archaeology to interested students. Professional training has only been arrived at by most commercial archaeologists the hard way, the wrong way, which is to be thrown in the deep end for several years and to try and find out for yourself what is required to successfully complete the job at hand. Without this, we have to ask, where will the skills come from to do the job once the archaeologists have gone on to other things?

Let's be clear about this... Archaeologists are cheap professionals who, with perhaps the exception of a few, never made much money in the boom. The costs to the developer might be expensive, but this is due to the fact that an excavation is highly labour intensive (add on the consultancy's profit margin).

I think it is short-sighted of people to assume that there will be a natural fall off of people which will leave the profession with just the right number of individuals to complete any work which comes their way. It is a hard way to make a living with little reward. Anyone who believes that the warm glow to the soul that should come with doing the job will be enough to keep people doing it, clearly hasn't done much of it for long. People have families to feed, mortgages to pay, responsibilities. Currently the wages (where there is work!) for an archaeological assistant are equivalent to wages in the year 2000 (yep, that's 11 years ago).

The practice of archaeology has naturally had to adapt to the requirements of development and alot of knowledge skills that have been gained are not going to be passed on. I can only see two possible outcomes..

A) Very little will change regarding legislation and policy. A small number of archaeologists will remain in a few years, mostly self-supported or part-timers who have other things going for them. These will not have the sufficient knowledge and skills or staff to undertake required work at a reasonable cost and so archaeology will become either more expensive or fall short of previous professional standards. There will be a reliance on FAS schemes to train up people who have real lives, people who would love to "do an excavation" instead of sitting on their unemployed arse, but who will not be prepared to leave home to travel around the country to follow the poorly paid work where it comes up.
In short, a return to beginnings and the lessons of the fifteen year boom will have been lost.

Currently employed civil servants will also be reduced in number as they are shuffled off to do something more productive. Those left behind will not be able to police (like they ever did) planning. Policy will change as, unlike in the boom years, there will not be the money to pay for archaeological work (which might prohibit smaller developments) and it will be deemed counter-productive to getting the country back on its feet. Kiss preservation by record goodbye and embrace token measures designed to keep us on the right side of Ireland's international and European agreements to conserve its own heritage. And with thunderous applause.

katarin

RollYerOwn wrote: »

It is clear that the attitudes of third level institutions in Ireland is not to train archaeologists, they teach archaeology to interested students.

I have to disagree here. I started commercial work with a BA from an NUI and there was nothing on the site I had to learn or get to grips with. My undergrad gave me all the skills I needed to become a site assistant immediately; my masters furnished me with even more. The problem, as I see it (teaching undergrads now), is that many people who undertake archaeology at undergraduate level are not as interested in the subject as they think they are. People don't pay attention in class (I watched one undergraduate spend a full hour on facebook in front of me in a lecture theatre yesterday during a fieldowork skills class). So when it comes down to teaching undergraduates to do something as simple as backfilling, for instance, they aren't prepared to work, neither mentally nor physically.
The only fault with the teaching of archaeology in Ireland is the dearth of experience required to gain an undergraduate degree.

RollYerOwn

katarin wrote: »

I have to disagree here. I started commercial work with a BA from an NUI and there was nothing on the site I had to learn or get to grips with. My undergrad gave me all the skills I needed to become a site assistant immediately;

The only fault with the teaching of archaeology in Ireland is the dearth of experience required to gain an undergraduate degree.

Not sure I understand you correctly, as this seems to be a contradiction. You seem to be saying on the one hand that your first archaeology degree gave you all the skills you needed to be able to excavate a site and that there was nothing left for you to learn on site. On the other hand you seem to be saying that undergraduates are not required to gain (practical?) experience to get their degree.

My statements come from two sources.

Firstly, being my own training of recent graduates (who are generally very grateful to learn the stuff they never learnt in college) over the course of several years. I have never been under the impression that even over an extended period of a long excavation, the experience can prepare an individual to be able to excavate a site after that, there is just to much to learn with so many different situations coming up in archaeological excavations.

Secondly, the admissions from university department members along the same lines. I remember an IAI conference in either Galway or Cork several years ago where the point was made (I think by Graham Warren of UCD) that it is not an archaeology department's job to train archaeologists, as the large part of archaeology students are not going to do archaeology after they graduate, but are only taking the subject as an interesting other option to some other subject that they will end up doing as a career.

I'm sure your case might be very different, but it is very often the case that one's first excavation involves a new site assistant doing very little that will tax them mentally, as there isn't the time to train someone else in when there is already someone to do the job. Alternatively perhaps your first excavation only involved very limited recording or strategy. It happens. Very few people, however, have the skills to be able to do all that might be required of them from graduation. I would go so far as to say I have never come across it and I doubt I know anyone who has. Most people need at least a couple of years in the field under their belt before they feel they could deal with whatever came up on a new excavation.

Riamfada

I did a lot of fieldwork during my education, more than most in my class having worked on a fair few field excavations including some with the Discovery Program where I gained practical experience in many aspects of field work which were not part of the academic program. For example during my MA we were shown a demonstration of a total station & GPS plotter but it was on volunteer fieldwork where I got access to the equipment for in depth study. I had a simular experience with geophysics in the field.

Having done all volunteer and practical fieldwork skills as an undergraduate that I was able to, I still felt that I was a complete beginner on my first commercial excavation.

However I must say that the University educated the class to the best of their ability (funding & time constraints) but were more than encouraging and facilitating when I requested tutorials in extra field work skills, without which I would not have been able to adapt so quickly to the commercial sector.

I think there needs to be a very clear balance between the ability of research and field ability in any archaeologist. I have met research archaeologists who cannot do basic fieldwork but also field archaeologists who cant remember any of the academic theory. A digger who cant distinguish between pottery and stone is no better than an academic who cant read a site plan.

RollYerOwn

Riamfada wrote: »

I think there needs to be a very clear balance between the ability of research and field ability in any archaeologist. I have met research archaeologists who cannot do basic fieldwork but also field archaeologists who cant remember any of the academic theory.

When I was studying in the 90's I remember the instilled idea that the archaeologist was a pivotal link between other related disciplines, such as scientists, historians, anthropologists.

Whilst this role still appears to be a necessity, for some reason archaeologists drift into their own little sub-groups. I wonder if the split between private sector commercial, public sector and academic archaeologists is worse in this country than others?

I suspect to an extent this comes from a sense of tribalism, with people only really engaging with their own little communities.

If only there was some central, Irish, organisation which represented all archaeologists and provided the necessary forum for debate, discussion and the advancement of the discipline.

katarin

RollYerOwn wrote: »

I'm sure your case might be very different, but it is very often the case that one's first excavation involves a new site assistant doing very little that will tax them mentally, as there isn't the time to train someone else in when there is already someone to do the job. Alternatively perhaps your first excavation only involved very limited recording or strategy. It happens.

I joined the excavation in the closing weeks; there was a huge move on to finish and record everything. It was assumed that I knew what I was doing. I was given the same work to do as everyone else. I didn't find it difficult and I got on pretty well.

I don't think it a contridiction to suggest that NUI's should put more emphasis on digging in the summer, because I find from experience training undergrads in England that the compulsary excavation period weeds out those who should be archaeologists from those who would rather just get their degree and be gone. It's a good way to spot talent for postgrads etc. But I found that the skills I learned during my undergrad (on the short voluntary training dig; recording; photography; post-ex etc learned in classes during the year) were enough to get me started when I started digging properly without having to be walked through it by a supervisor first.