Why is it illegal to use Metal Detectors in Ireland

too much chance of coming across more catholic church septic tanks.

Because the Jesuits would rather the evidence of this Islands vast and important indigenous pagan past stays in the ground until it turns up by accident, or never.

Nothing to do with how deep it is buried. The State owns things to do with national heritage, not you or any other individual regardless of what else you own. You may be entitled to receive a reward for finding it however

I'd say you're thinking of a law from one of the countries that don't use metric(Liberia, Myanmar or the USA)

Does that not cover lands/buildings already discovered, no?

Didn't they make some major find down in Waterford a few years ago?

In the UK all treasure belongs to the monarch. That rule obviously didn't survive Ireland becoming a Republic. But the Supreme Court found that the State had a right to all items of national heritage.

Edit: I have just seen that Bubblypop posted the link to the actual case above.

Because randomers digging up artefacts tells you **** all about their context ie the important stuff. Sure you’ll have a few trinkets, but you’ll have a balls of a time trying to figure out what that “story” of the object is. Archaeological dig sites are essentially like crime scenes.

I have a friend who was working in the “industry” around then. He said that the archaeologists were terrified of holding up construction for too long.

A lot of “finds” we’re ignored, obviously they couldn’t ignore any big ones but the company wouldn’t get hired for any future digs if they were anyway thorough.

A fair few archaeologists were unemployed around then too so you can see why they were beholden to the business “interests” of the construction groups.

The object itself isn't the main interest. It's the context of where it's found. Say you find a thousand year old silver cross in the ground. How do you know it's been in the ground a thousand years, or some lad didn't bury it there last week or last year, or 300 years ago?

The problem with metal detectorists is they destroy the context of an object.

If something has survived in the ground a thousand or five thousand years, it's unlikely to be destroyed any time in the next few hundred. Plenty of time to get proper archaeologists to dig it up.