National Museum denies statutory role in protecting Irish heritage
Issue date27th October 2004
In a letter to the Tara Foundation dated 20th October 2004, the National Museum of Ireland’s Head of Collections, Raghnall O’Floinn, states that the National Museum’s role under the National Monuments Legislation “is to ensure the protection and care of the portable archaeological heritage and does not extend to taking a public stance on the merits or demerits of any particular infrastructural scheme or project. I have made this position clear on a number of occasions in relation to the M50 Motorway and the proposed Waterford bypass. The Museum’s principal concern is to ensure that adequate provision is made for the proper excavation, retrieval, recording and preservation or archaeological deposits in advance of such schemes.”
This, on the face of it, is confusing. The statutory role of the Museum is limited to ensuring the safety of “portable archeaological heritage”, by which it must be assumed is meant artefacts. This is done by ensuring that “adequate provision” is made in the excavation, retrieval etc. of these artefacts. Must it be assumed that the Museum thus ignores the context of the artefacts, i.e. the structures and sites in which these artefacts are found? So it must, if what Mr. O’Floinn says is true. But the statement about not “taking a public stance on the merits and demerits of any particular infrastructural scheme or project” is hard to reconcile with the prominent presence of the Director of the National Museum, Dr. Pat Wallace, at conferences organised by the National Roads Authority. The only conclusion that can be drawn from his participation in these events is that he, in his capacity of Director of the Museum, is indicating his endorsement of the NRA’s activities, which must include any and all of its road construction projects, as well as its overseeing of archaeological surveys, the methods employed in which have been shown elsewhere to be totally unacceptable.
The letter concludes, “The consultative role of the Director of the National Museum of Ireland under the various National Monuments Acts takes place on a regular basis with officials of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government’s National Monuments unit. As such consultations concern matters relating to the ongoing deliberations between public bodies provided for under statute, these cannot be made public [emphasis added].” What is stated here is key to the Government’s whole approach to this issue. Because the actual reasons and considerations that form the basis of the decisions made regarding heritage are part of the consultations regarding heritage, these cannot be made public. Of course they cannot, because a different picture of the current administration’s attitude to Irish heritage would then emerge, and for the sake of preserving appearances, that cannot be allowed.
ENDS