ABSTRACT
This book has been an attempt to show that medieval archaeology as a discipline has come of age in Ireland over the last thirty years or so. However, it must also be apparent that for a country so rich in medieval sites and monuments, research in Ireland has really only scratched the surface of the available evidence. How this might be improved in the future is difficult to say without a massive increase in both the funding and manpower of the principal state archaeological service, both in the Office of Public Works and in the National Museum of Ireland in the Republic of Ireland, and in the Historic Buildings and Monuments Section of the Department of the Environment and the Ulster Museum in Northern Ireland. The legislation protecting monuments was also in urgent need of updating as the original National Monument Act of 1930, as amended in 1954, was woefully inadequate to protect them against the encroachment of developers, whether rural or urban. An amendment act was passed in 1987 primarily to control metal detectors and underwater archaeology, and to increase the penalties for all infringements of the acts. A further amendment act is currently under discussion in the Dáil.
