How are things on the ground these days?

pog it

Hey all!

Really out of curiousity and since I'm so out of the loop as regards archaeological fieldwork these days, I was wondering what projects are going on at the moment and if standards, etc. have changed in the industry; as in better pay, conditions, allowances and that kind of thing.

Have to say I do have my days when I miss the old days of the digging and all the associated craic and shenanigans and when it didn't matter about what you got paid. Really is a special kind of career if it suits you.

Marchandire

I found a site assistants position advertised a few months ago, minimum wage plus 30 euro PW subsistence. Hope that answers your query re. pay and conditions

Riamfada

I get a call every now and again. Once every few months. Usually about a 2-3 week short term contract. Always minimum wage.

pog it

I'm glad I made the break from it when I did but I had to wrench myself away from it in the end. It's really hard to leave it actually.

dr gonzo

Marchandire wrote: »

I found a site assistants position advertised a few months ago, minimum wage plus 30 euro PW subsistence. Hope that answers your query re. pay and conditions

Jesus, minimum wage for a site assistant...

I know we're in a recession but there cant be too many careers out there where the ratio of qualification to wage is so ridiculous! Even in the boom times it sounded like highly qualified people were being paid, at best, ok money.

pog it

In most cases supervisors were lucky to come out with 550 a week gross. Think average was 500-600 a week, so GO was min wage and site assistant damn near to it.

Totally agree with you dr gonzo. Considering the work and conditions involved it is crazy.

Marchandire

Yeah, I'm told wages are down to the 360-390 euro range for qualified site assistants (degree and 6 months experience apparently).

Advertised contracts are usually for 2-3 weeks. Though I haven't seen many on offer recently. It's rumoured that director qualified archaeologists are now supervising or even just digging.

Unemployment is officially at 82% - the figures are 1,750 to 2,000 working archaeologists (in 2007) now down to 350.

I'm sure a few of those 350 could post here with optimistic comments about their own experience, but that's speaking from inside the fishbowl tbh. The 80% unemployed who are out in the cold represent the industry to a far greater degree.

And a new crop of graduates will be arriving in about two months - poor sods.

Edit for Gonzo - the average wage for a third level graduate in 2007 was 51,000 euro (from the CSO). Even assuming that's dropped to some degree, that's still double what a top level, degree certified site assistant earned that year. Archaeology is by far the worst paid graduate profession in the country.

RDM_83 again

Whats the international situation like?considering taking up a masters course at the minute, does experience with GIS etc bump the salaries etc?

shellykbookey

Marchandire wrote: »

It's rumoured that director qualified archaeologists are now supervising or even just digging.

Not rumour its fact. I worked with both supervisors and directors who were working as site assistants last year. The skill set which has already been and will be lost by the time things bottom out is unreal. It’s also a pain in the ass that I would have made more on the dole since I qualified than I did digging, the last job I took ended up costing me money , still wouldn't do anything else though

Riamfada

shellykbookey wrote: »

Not rumour its fact. I worked with both supervisors and directors who were working as site assistants last year. The skill set which has already been and will be lost by the time things bottom out is unreal. It’s also a pain in the ass that I would have made more on the dole since I qualified than I did digging, the last job I took ended up costing me money , still wouldn't do anything else though

You can't stay on the dole forever though

Wibbs

[interloper]It really pisses me off to read this. It's our heritage we're talking about and you guys are at the sharp end of discovering and preserving it. And we spend 2 and a half million quid on a bloody garden for Chelsea? You couldn't make it up. :mad::( [/interloper]

Riamfada

Speaking from a purely objective point of view, a huge ammount of sites need to be developed and ran as businesses. The likes of Tara, Cruchan and numerous tower houses ect need to be built up in a spectacular fashion to encourage tourism into peripheral areas thus creating jobs, money and economic growth. Unfortunately the OPW are keeping their heads down and the Minister is happy to keep the bills down.

This should have all been done in the boom with the cash generated from excavations but as they were all done by private companies the return to the people of Ireland is limted to a few reports which will only be read by academics and undergrad students.

Marchandire

Riamfada wrote: »

This should have all been done in the boom with the cash generated from excavations but as they were all done by private companies the return to the people of Ireland is limted to a few reports which will only be read by academics and undergrad students.

To be fair though, a dozen or so archaeologists did get to become quite wealthy. That and the reports seem to be the only tangible legacy of the Celtic Tiger archaeology boom.

dr gonzo

Riamfada wrote: »

Speaking from a purely objective point of view, a huge ammount of sites need to be developed and ran as businesses. The likes of Tara, Cruchan and numerous tower houses ect need to be built up in a spectacular fashion to encourage tourism into peripheral areas thus creating jobs, money and economic growth. Unfortunately the OPW are keeping their heads down and the Minister is happy to keep the bills down.

I could be way off base here but it seems to me (now that you suggest it) that even as they are, our cultural sites are grossly under-marketed, am i wrong in thinking that?

DeepSleeper

dr gonzo wrote: »

I could be way off base here but it seems to me (now that you suggest it) that even as they are, our cultural sites are grossly under-marketed, am i wrong in thinking that?

I think you're spot on here - just look at the situation in Britain (as I have been saying we should for ages...) - Look at English Heritage, Historic Scotland, Cadw, the National Trust - all of these bodies have serious marketing power: the have distinctive brand image, they push membership towards visitors and then, when they sign up for membership, the members get regular full-colour magazines and other offers etc which make them feel part of something. You can get multi-site/annual tickets in Ireland too, but do you then feel part of something big? Do you feel a shared ownership of our heritage?

I'm not saying we should re-invent Dúchas, but at least that had brand identity - ask any member of the public who looks after heritage sites in Ireland and they probably won't know... Even professionals who work in the area struggle with Contact Details - check out the OPW website and see if you can find out who is the person to talk to about a castle in Cork or an abbey in Donegal. Move outside National Monuments in the care of the State and the situation doesn't improve - check out the website of the National Monuments Service and try to see which archaeologist deals with planning in those same counties (or any other for that matter...).

We need a champion for archaeology in this country - one who can make things happen and who can be the face of the profession which looks at the historic landscape. To look at the age-old divide in archaeology between monuments and artefacts, I saw Pat Wallace in the paper there again the other day - many members of the public would recognise him as the Director of the National Musuem of Ireland and a fair few would even know his voice in a radio interview even if they missed him being introduced at the start - So, artefact archaeology has a champion - a figurehead if you will. Now, turning to monument and landscape archaeology, how many know who the Chief Archaeologist in the State service is??? Anyone?

Time for a new start - a new way of caring for monuments and a new way of marketing them too...

pog it

We were badly let down by practically every official in the National Monuments Dept - bar one/two whistleblowers of sorts ..

After what happened with the Hill of Tara I'll never forgive the Dept officials. They only cared about their jobs and pay. Even archaeologists moved en masse to Tara when they got the call. How can one have any hope for this country, really

cue

May be of interest to some here

http://www.heritagecouncil.ie/fileadmin/user_upload/Publications/Archaeology/Archaeological_Profession_in_Ireland_2011.pdf

snowdaisy

well said deepsleeper, have u
been excavating my brain?