Standing next to me in this lonely crowd | Conversation with Rodney Moffett, Amey Plc & A reply to Declan Hurl’s 'Apologia Pro Excavatio Sua'
Introduction
On June 25 2015 Mark H. Durkan, Minister at the Department of the Environment, published Prof Gabriel
Cooney’s Review of the context of the excavation of a
crannog in Drumclay townland Co. Fermanagh on the route of the Cherrymount Link
Road. On July 17 I published my considered analysis of the report on
this blog: Mud, lies and hazard tape: Reviewing The
Report on the Drumclay Crannog. Rather than let the matter lie there, I
assembled a series of questions, comments, and requests for further information and reply
for some of the principal organisations involved in the Drumclay Crannog
Fiasco. These included the Ministers at the Department of the Environment and Department
for Regional Development and Mel
Ewell, Chief Executive Officer of Amey. Amey were, of course, the
engineering firm in overall control of the road scheme and employers of Declan
Hurl, the director of the Phase 1 excavation. At the time of writing, the DoE
have not
produced anything resembling a useful response to the questions sent to
them. The DRD have offered to meet with me to discuss the questions put to
them, but have so far failed to organise a meeting. Amey, on the other hand,
were very keen and I received the following response on July 22 from Imelda
Riley (Customer Service Manager | CEO Complaints Office):
I have now liaised with our team in Northern Ireland with
regards to the issues you have raised. Due to the fact that we have a strong
presence in Northern Ireland, the team are very much aware of the project and
indeed the contents of Professor Cooney’s report.
While, in our view, the team did everything in their power
to liaise and comply with the relevant bodies, the team does accept there are
lessons to be learned and will continue to engage proactively with the
Department and the wider as and when required.
I appreciate that you have raised a number of specific
points therefore to avoid email correspondence, of which may appear to be
impersonal and clinical, I am pleased to advise that our local team would like
to meet with you to discuss the issues, you have raised, in full.
I hope you find this acceptable and would ask you to
contact Rodney Moffett at our office in Rushmere House, Belfast, to agree a
mutually convenient time and venue.
The TL;DR version is:
We’re not to blame for any of this, but we’d like to meet with you to convince
you in person.
After that there was a
bit of toing and froing to agree a place and a time to meet – I didn’t feel like
going full Daniel 6, so they agreed to send their representative to my house.
The next issue was of what we’d talk about. My feeling was that I’d sent them a
list of questions that I’d like to see answered. Thus, to my mind, these should
form the basis of our discussion. They had other ideas. Rodney Moffett, in an
email on July 24, suggested that “it may be more appropriate for us to meet for
an open discussion in the first instance, this discussion may then help
formulate an agenda for a secondary meeting if required”. I smelled a rat here
– two days previously the message was that they wanted to “discuss the issues,
you have raised, in full” now I’m being told that they’re more interested in an
amorphous “open discussion” with the possibility of a further meeting if
necessary. My reply (on the same day) was simple and direct:
I would … be uncomfortable meeting without an agreed agenda
and I see no need for an unstructured open discussion as a preliminary
exercise. I attach an agenda based on my initial questions. Either you are comfortable
with speaking to these points, or you are not.
… turns out there were
comfortable after all and there was no more talk of general conversations and
supplementary meetings. The agenda, based on the original set of questions, was
accepted, along with the requirement that the meeting be recorded. So that’s
how Rodney Moffett, the Associate Director of Amey NI, accompanied by his Personal
Assistant, arrived at my house on the morning of July 31 2015.
My original intention
was to ask my questions, receive Rodney Moffett’s answers, write up the
transcript and use that as the basis of this or any subsequent posts. I had
taken a deliberate decision to not provide aggressive rebuttal or confrontation
to any of Rodney Moffett’s replies as I felt that my position was already
perfectly clear and, beyond stating general levels of agreement or
disagreement, it would add little to the encounter to turn it into a rerun of Jeremy Paxman vs. Michael
Howard. Instead, I wanted to take sufficient time to contemplate any of his
replies and provide thoughtful, considered argument as part of a post such as
this. That brings us to the recording itself. By mutual agreement, I have
omitted a number of personal names of given individuals, confidential material
not currently in the public domain, and comments and discussions not directly
germane to the discussion. Where the wording has been changed from the original
meeting, it has been done in the interests of clarity, readability, and to
enhance the general sense of the discussion. My process here will be to
extract the questions, Rodney Moffett’s answers, and to provide response and
context where necessary. I have attempted to preserve some of the feeling of a spoken conversation,
leaving in occasional miss-started sentences, and incomplete ones where we
interrupted and cut each other off. For anyone wishing to read the full
transcript, shorn of any further comment and question, you may inspect it at
your leisure: here.
That would appear
simple enough, if it had not been for the somewhat complicating factor of
Declan Hurl sending an open letter to Prof Gabriel Cooney (and cc’ing
co-authors Nick Brannon and Sarah Witchell, along with DoE Minister Mark H.
Durkan) for publication in Archaeology Ireland magazine. Hurl’s Apologia Pro Excavatio Sua covers much of the same ground as the Rodney Moffett conversation. I had thought about attempting to
deal with them separately, but they are so closely related that it seemed best
to take them together. With regard to Hurl’s Apologia, I should clearly state that I have not spoken to Prof
Cooney, or either of his co-authors, about this letter or their feelings regarding it. Personally, I hope that Cooney’s initial response was to have it printed on
nice soft paper and then use it to liberally dab away the tears of mirth and
laughter before getting on with something that actually deserved his attention.
It shouldn’t need saying, but I’m going to do it anyway: Cooney and his
co-authors are not helpless damsels in high towers – they do not require me to
ride to their aid. However, as the Apologia
is an open letter on a topic I feel strongly about, I believe that I am well
within my rights to provide analysis and rebuttal. The other thing I should say
is that following the publication of the Apologia,
I was approached by a member of the Phase 1 excavation crew who offered me
their responses to a number of Hurl’s assertions. Where I have quoted from the
notes they provided, they are referred to as TLA (Three Letter Acronym) to
preserve their anonymity. To investigate whether or not TLA’s rebuttals were
fair and accurate, I approached another member of the Phase 1 excavation crew
for their response to the Apologia,
but (crucially) did not share TLA’s comments with them. This second person
(hereafter TLB) provided a remarkably coherent and consistent picture that
matched TLA’s in almost every detail.
… now read on …
The Interview & The Apologia
It all seemed to go so
well at the beginning – everything was civilised, friendly … even cordial. Then
I attempted to ask the first question on the agreed agenda. However, Rodney Moffett
obviously had other things on his mind and a message that he dearly wanted to
get across: Cooney got it wrong because he didn’t engage with Amey and this has
led to inaccuracies in the final report.
Rodney Moffett (RM) “First of all, in relation to Prof
Cooney’s report, I am disappointed that he decided not to engage with
ourselves, and as such some of the information he has in his report is
factually incorrect. That is a disappointment and it is something we have
raised with the Department. Prof Cooney was given a task to do and I imagine
that in that task he was set out some boundaries which may or may not have been
to engage with ourselves. I think that was wrong and I am disappointed that
that happened.”
“Prof Cooney misses the fact that RPS liaised with the NIEA
between 2006-2008, which is unfortunate and disappointing. Prior to that, Scott
Wilson (who were another consultant who are now Aecom) liaised with NIEA, as I
understand, looking at the line originally.”
Robert M Chapple (RMC) “So you strongly believe that Prof
Cooney is wrong in this?”
(RM) “He is wrong. It’s not that I believe. He is factually
wrong. Now, does that change the overall system? That’s debatable. But, as a
fact, there was liaising that took place between RPS, on our behalf and the
Department’s behalf, and NIEA in 2006 and subsequently in early 2008, and those
communications have been missed, for whatever reason, by Prof Cooney.”
(RMC) “He states very clearly where he got his information
from – what was given him by DRD and from NIEA. If they didn’t …”
(RM) “They never asked us. They obviously didn’t have a
record themselves. I can’t comment on the state of their files, but I have our
records … I have RPS’s email out and I have NIEA’s response back.”
(RM) “Again, it is unfortunate, for whatever reason, that
the decision was taken not to engage, because we could have provided more
information that may have been useful. Essentially, before we ever get to the
Environmental Statement there were two public information events where the
proposed road alignments were highlighted, suggestions on how to proceed were
identified, and comments were received from members of the public and Statuary
Consultees. The Environmental Statement was then produced and published, and
again was subject to Public scrutiny, and there were no objections received.”
Even right at the end
of the interview, he returns to this point that Prof Cooney didn’t engage with
Amey in the production of this report:
(RM) “I was disappointed at some of the things that are
simply wrong and factually incorrect because the information wasn’t there, and
that’s a frustration.”
 |
| Rodney Moffett (via New Civil Engineer) |
One way or another,
Rodney Moffett wanted and needed to get that point across, and I realised that
there was no way of redirecting him until he was satisfied that he’d got it out
there. It was only when he’d covered the topic to his satisfaction that we
could move on to the first topic on the agenda:
How do you feel that the actions of Declan Hurl reflect on your company
and how they may reflect on Amey’s corporate values?
During the previous
segment he stated that:
(RM) “I’ll be honest in that in terms of Declan, he’s a
very passionate individual who has a style that some people might call it
‘belligerent’, if that’s a word I can use. As an archaeologist, he has worked
with us for a number of years now, but essentially I have always found him to
be professional in his conduct, he’s passionate about doing a good and proper
job.”
In coming to the
question proper, he had this to say:
(RM) “I can understand that, at times Declan comes across
as quite authoritarian. FarrimondMcManus, after the events were raised [i.e. post July 17 2012], expressed
frustrations and concerns at the approach taken. I asked why this was not
raised before, but it was raised afterwards.”
(RM) “Was Declan authoritarian in his approach? Yes, I
would accept that he probably was. Was he professionally efficient in his role?
I’m not in a position to say, but when I asked people whose opinion I respect,
I was concerned that their initial answer wasn’t a complete yes. These people
did not challenge his professional ability per
se, but they did, and it’s easy in hindsight, but they did express concerns
that the approach being adopted was, in their view, slightly old-fashioned and
not in line with modern techniques.”
(RMC) “This is a view that has been expressed on a number
of occasions. I suppose, we all get old and our techniques get old with us …
that’s why we need new archaeologists, new engineers …”
(RM) “I suppose then, in terms of how does it reflect on
our company values … obviously … Amey as a company are 21,000 employees across
the UK. The company is focused on providing a service to our clients and our
underlying ethos is all about progression, collaboration, and working with
people. The authoritarian style doesn’t sit well with that, and I accept that
there are issues there. I suppose, in hindsight, from my view point to be
perfectly honest, in terms of us deciding that a member of our team could lead
the archaeological excavation was, in hindsight, probably a decision that it
would have been better to separate that completely from the company, because
there would have been more, in my view, robust checks and balances in terms of
sharing that across the board. And that’s a lesson that we’ve learned …”
(RMC) “If I may say, I think that’s a very important lesson
…”
(RM) “Oh it is – I have no issue with that at all … But,
equally, as an individual, Declan came to us – in fairness – quite a degree of
experience. And his CV, his past experience, I would say extremely good in the
field of archaeology in Ireland. I don’t know enough about it, but looking at
it on paper, it looked good to me! I can’t comment much more than to say that
I’ve spoken to others that have worked in archaeology, who I know through
personal connections, and just asked the question and most people have heard of
Declan in some shape or form. Most people are aware that he has good
experience. He obviously held quite senior post in Environment & Heritage
at the time, before he decided to come out into the private sector. So, from a
decision point – hindsight’s 20:20 – but from a decision point at the time, we
appointed him because he was capable of doing the job. He was, in our view,
strong enough to manage the conflict between programme and archaeological
needs.”
That’s a pretty strong
statement from Rodney Moffett! My first reaction was that I want to work for Amey … when you’ve screwed up so hard that
there’s a government investigation into your actions (among other things) it
would be easy for a company to quietly suggest that you seek employment
elsewhere … anywhere … Now! … But, instead you’ve got a manager who’s willing
to travel across town to personally defend you, rather than throwing you under
the bus … that’s a great company to work for. Even still, Rodney Moffett’s
statements are instructive. He agrees that Declan Hurl’s management approach
was ‘belligerent’ and ‘authoritarian’ and notes that, even if only informed
after the event, his approach was outdated and antiquated. While being a robust
defence of his employee, Rodney Moffett’s words are obviously nuanced and
controlled, holding back from a fully-fledged endorsement. In terms of ‘lessons
learned’ it is gratifying to see that one change that Amey have implemented is
the division of roles between their company archaeologist and the providers of
archaeological advice and expertise.
My next questions asked
for comment around the issue of the trenching work that was judged by Prof
Cooney to have been in breach of the Historic Monuments and Archaeological
Objects (Northern Ireland) Order 1995. In his report Cooney had stated:
“[T]he trenches dug with a machine had not been excavated
archaeologically, that Declan Hurl did not direct the work (as licensed), nor
was he even present. The work carried out was unauthorised and in contravention
of the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (NI) Order 1995. [¶] At a
site meeting on the 29 February Amey agreed that the trenches had been dug
without archaeological supervision. The Amey archaeologist had pointed out the
illegality of the action but had not said this in the report which he had written
for Amey to submit to NIEA”
When questioned on this
point Rodney Moffett said:
(RM) “The trenching work that Prof Cooney’s referring to is
obviously the second set of trenching – there was the first set of trenching
that was done pre-contract. There was a second exercise of trenching that was
done under the instruction of the NIEA, where the NIEA asked us to excavate to
establish the extent of the crannog, and our site team have recorded that. In
fairness to the NIEA individual, they – perhaps rightly or wrongly – assumed
that would be done archaeologically. And, in fairness to the site supervision
team, they didn’t hear those words. So they just said ‘OK, let’s find the
extents of the crannog’. So there was …”
(RMC) “So, you reckon this comes down to a communication
issue?”
(RM) “All I can take is the records of the site meeting
where, again, if Prof Cooney had asked he’d have seen, where the instruction
was given – and it’s clear – there was an instruction given … and, in fairness
to Declan … again the slant that Prof Cooney puts on it, I think, is incorrect.
Once it was discovered that a mistake had been made and, in fairness to Declan,
he highlighted it with the NIEA senior officer … the NIEA senior officer, as I
understand it, changed then completely – there was one person on it and then
the second person came in. The second person raised it in discussion with
Declan. Declan highlighted that in his view it was illegal, and between them
there was an agreement made that, essentially, a trenching report would be completed
to salvage the exercise. I have challenged our guys because, obviously, an
illegal act is quite a serious matter, and I’m disappointed that Prof Cooney
has sought to use that language. As I say, at the time NIEA were aware – they
didn’t seek to prosecute or anything else. Essentially, it was them that
instructed that we do it. Equally, our site supervision team – who are
engineering based – probably took the words too literally. And, we’ve said that
to them: ‘this was an archaeological [site] why did you do it?’ and it was
‘that’s what we were told to do!’ … and that’s what the records have shown me …”
Declan Hurl devotes a
portion of the Apologia to this topic,
explaining that he was working in England at the time of the unlicensed
trenching and that he wasn’t responsible for these actions and is in no way to
blame. Taken together, the statements from Declan Hurl and Rodney Moffett are
perfectly understandable: the NIEA operative did not make the situation clear
to the engineering personnel on the site that the work should be carried out
under the direction of an archaeologist. Declan Hurl only heard about it later.
As this piece of legislation only applies to archaeologists, there was no fault
on the behalf of either Declan Hurl or the Amey engineers, and we’re all just
naughty, naughty children for suggesting otherwise …
… absolutely …
… you got me there, guys! …
… oh … wait a minute … the Historic
Monuments and Archaeological Objects (Northern Ireland) Order 1995 doesn’t just
apply to archaeologists present at the time! The evidence presented here may –
in part – exonerate Declan Hurl from direct complicity in the illegal trenching
activities, but it still raises new and troubling questions about how the
archaeological site works were being handled by Amey. How come the licenced
archaeologist was deployed on other works to England when it appears that the
crannog was a ‘live’ site requiring archaeological oversight? How come NIEA and
Amey engineers were discussing how to resolve the archaeology in the absence of
the licenced archaeologist? If this version of events is shown to be correct, Declan
Hurl may not be directly to blame for this illegal activity. However, there
still remains the issue that, as the licenced archaeologist, he must retain
some degree of responsibility for the works carried out on the site. While
Rodney Moffett would spin this as a communications error – NIEA staff didn’t
make it clear to Amey engineers (in the absence of the site archaeologist) that
works impacting the archaeology must be overseen by an archaeologist – I really
can’t find fault with the NIEA here. What other expectation could there
possibly be? It’s an archaeological site and the company has an archaeologist
on staff – why could you possibly think that this is not an archaeological
issue? It’s not like Amey have never dealt with archaeological sites before. As
Rodney Moffett says later on in the interview: “this is not the first site that
archaeology has been on … we’ve done several …” … well, if that is the case,
why wasn’t there even a basic understanding that these works should be
archaeologically monitored? While this portion of the Apologia may be described as an attempt at deflection and
self-preservation, it would seek to bypass the issue of, if not Declan Hurl,
then who is to blame for the unlicensed trenching of the crannog? Rodney
Moffett says it quite clearly: ‘our site supervision team’. Given the current
evidence, I would suggest that they had every reason to understand that works
on and around an archaeological site would require the presence of an
archaeologist. If Amey are unable to employ engineers with this much
rudimentary sense, I fear that this will do much more damage to the company’s
professional reputation than anything wreaked by one ‘belligerent’ and
‘authoritarian’ archaeologist. Reading between the lines of these two statements
it appears to show a company ill-placed and ill-prepared to deal effectively
with archaeological undertakings. Their engineers appear to have no
understanding of, or respect for, the work done by their company archaeologist
and a management layer that is content to redeploy the archaeologist to England
during crucial periods. It’s not a picture that fills me with confidence in
their abilities. If NIEA were not at fault for ineffective communication of
their requests, they are certainly at fault for not pursuing a prosecution once
they realised that a potential breach of the Order had occurred. Not only did
they not seek to prosecute the offence, they didn’t so much as administer a
slap on the wrist for it, eventually renewing the license without any further
conditions, warnings, reprimands, notes … nothing! This in itself should give
the reader pause for thought at the degree of capability and leadership shown
by NIEA personnel.
Regarding Declan Hurl’s
interrogation of the crew and the summary dismissal of one ‘whistle blower’, I
asked:
(RMC) “Ok … moving on to point four [of the agenda] … my
understanding of the events was that … 17th of July my blog post is published
to, I would say from my perspective much more response than I had ever
anticipated … Declan rounds everybody up, brings them into the site hut and –
I’ve been told by a number of people – basically proceeded to shout at them.
And, when one person – and I will say this to you … I was spoken to by a number
of people on that site – but one person decided that they were going to,
essentially, take one for the team, claimed that he was the sole ‘whistle
blower’ and was immediately fired by Declan. That is my understanding of it.
How do you feel about it? Is that a correct assessment? …”
(RM) “I’ve asked if that happened. It’s not Declan’s view
on what happened, although he does acknowledge that he held a meeting with all
the people and they were all in the room and there were words exchanged. In
terms of hiring and firing, the excavators didn’t work for Declan, so he wasn’t
in apposition to either hire or fire. Once the blog occurred there was contact
made with FarrimondMacManus who were the employers and, ultimately, it was
their decision as to who remained on site or who went off. That said, Robert,
and I fully acknowledge that there obviously was a quite serious breakdown in
communications at that stage between Declan as the lead archaeologist and those
who were there, essentially, as a team and I can’t comment on the decision
taken by FarrimondMacManus but I believe it was more focused around maintaining
a team rather than apportioning blame, and that’s my understanding from
speaking to them afterwards about it.”
(RMC) “So you would see it that this wasn’t Declan’s doing
because he didn’t actually …”
(RM) “No I can’t …”
(RMC) “I’ll be honest with you – that is not the story that
I have heard from people that were in the room”
(RM) “… now, I can’t – hand on heart – say that Declan
didn’t turn around and say ‘you’re out’ … I can’t say that, but I can say that
he didn’t have the authority to say that and it wasn’t his job to say that.
And, ultimately, the final solution came from FarrimondMacManus. So, what happened
on that day – I’ve asked Declan and he’s written me quite a bit of notes on it,
actually. But, where he talks about his interpretation … [quotes from notes]
“interrogation of the team involved my speaking to them en masse and asking who had been supplying photographs and comment
deriding our clients against protocols about which they were informed in their
induction.” He says he remained civil and controlled throughout … again, I can
only take his word for it … I wasn’t …”
(RMC) “I think that’s a position that would be challenged
by those I’ve spoken to …”
(RM) “I didn’t have any other employees in that room at
that time, as I understand. I’ve asked my site team, and nobody else claimed
witness to it, so I can only comment on what I’m being told. But, ultimately,
the hiring and firing – who worked and who didn’t – was a decision for
FarrimondMacManus.”
(RMC) [Agenda item 5] “So, I would take it that you don’t
believe that either Declan or, Amey as his employer, owes anybody an apology?”
(RM) “No … listen … this job did not go well, and I fully
acknowledge that! Ultimately, there is a crannog – fair enough, that’s been
excavated in Enniskillen that could still be there – ultimately, there are
lessons to be learned. In terms of owing any individual an apology, I don’t
think that I’m in a position where I can apologise on an individual basis. But,
as a company, I am sorry that a lot of these issues were not addressed before
they ever happened. You know, hindsight’s a wonderful thing, and I am frustrated
that some of the information that we received was not clear to allow us to make
more appropriate decisions, particularly in the design and assessment stage, to
be honest. And that’s where my bigger frustration is, I have to say,
particularly in … it’s easy to pick on NIEA, but had there been a stronger line
taken at that stage, basically ‘there’s a risk there’s archaeology here – don’t
even go near it!’ … that sorts it out.”
(RM) Ultimately … from my perspective, personally, we had a
team on site that effectively – for whatever reason – there were people on that
team who weren’t happy and that’s an issue … if you want to say an apology, I
am disappointed that unhappiness wasn’t addressed when it first arose, if it
arose ... as I say, the first we were made aware of it was when the blog
occurred. Now, that was a disappointment to me and that was an issue for me. As
I say, I spoke to FarrimondMacManus who were the supply chain and the people
that I knew who were supplying the staff and, in fairness to them, as I
understand it, they weren’t fully aware of the extent of the problems. Because
I think they would have acted, similar to myself, in that they would have done
something to address it, and that’s a concern … so, if there is an apology to
be made, Robert, I have no issue with apologising for that reason, because
people shouldn’t be treated like that. Whether their cause is right or wrong is
irrelevant …
In discussing when and
how he came to find out about Declan Hurl’s activities and the situation on the
excavation site, Rodney Moffett had this to say:
(RM) “I spoke to FarrimondMacManus about the others on
site, because I wanted to get a balance. There’s two sides to every story. When
the blog first came out, we understood and we found out that there were
pressures on site. The question to Declan was what, essentially, is going on?
And the answers were that there were some in the excavation team who either
were unhappy about being there or were destructive to the works in some shape
or form. I challenged that and, on a balanced view, I think there were faults
on both sides. I accept that Declan was authoritarian in his style and adopted
slightly older methods. I think the method that that was challenged, if it had
gone through FarrimondMacManus it probably could have been resolved on site. I
think it is disappointing that, for whatever reason, the individuals … I don’t
understand why … I understand they, perhaps, raised it with Declan, but didn’t
raise it with their own management team – for whatever reason – and I can’t
answer why that happened.”
(RMC) “My understanding is that they attempted to raise it
directly with Declan as the site director and, my understanding is that,
although I haven’t spoken to the particular person, that discussions or feelers
were sent out to NIEA to raise concerns. I can’t speak as to whether
FarrimondMacManus were contacted or spoken to in any way …”
(RM) “As I said, I spoke to FarrimondMacManus after it
first came out and it was accepted that there was a balance. Whilst I’m not in
any shape or form pretending that Declan was blameless, I think there was fault
on both sides in some shape or form.”
(RMC) “… so, it basically comes down to ‘it’s not as bad as
it was painted, but yes there were faults both in terms of Declan’s management
style and his approach to excavating the crannog …”
(RM) “As I understand, and, again, I’m not an expert on
archaeology in any shape or form, so I can’t comment, but I’ve taken feelers on
the approach taken and I’m led to believe that the approach was, if I can say
‘old fashioned’. It may not necessarily have been professionally flawed,
because I don’t know that, but certainly the consideration was that it was old
fashioned in the manner.”
There is much to be
unpacked and mulled over here, but the most salient points are that Declan Hurl
has a profoundly different narrative of the events surrounding this altercation
from the rest of the excavation crew I’ve spoken to. Further, in the absence of
a corroborating witness, even Rodney Moffett is unenthusiastic about fully endorsing
Declan Hurl's version of events. In the context of the Apologia,
Rodney Moffett's phrase ‘there were people on that team who weren’t happy’ takes on special
significance. Declan Hurl states:
“I need to go on record now to state my contention that the
bulk of the responsibility for this situation lies with certain core members of
the team, whose disruptive conduct I had to bring to the attention of their
employers as early as the second week of the project. Whatever issues they had
with being assigned to this project under my direction, they clearly bridled at
the imposition and from the very start did not pass up any opportunity to
argue, object to and criticise my position in front of the whole team.”
In the first instance,
this is pretty much contradictory to Rodney Moffett’s claim that FarrimondMacManus
“weren’t fully aware of the extent of the problems.” Beyond that, Declan Hurl’s
contention is that there were troublemakers who really didn’t want to be on the
site and so decided to be maliciously obstructive. This is totally and wholly
believable because in 2012 there were just so very many jobs for field
archaeologists to choose from … people were just crying out for archaeologists
and if you didn’t like the job you were on, you could just cause trouble
because the next one was just around the corner. In fact, the situation was
quite tedious – you could hardly get any digging done for being in such demand
and don’t even get me started on the constant adulation!
Sorry! ...
That’s part of a post for an alternative universe version of this blog … the one where I’m an archaeo-rockstar and go everywhere on my unicorn that constantly vomits rainbows!
No … 2012 … in this reality at least … was a rubbish time for archaeologists … in the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown, jobs were few and far between and those that were available were incredibly coveted. This is a period where something in the region of 60-80% of the profession left to find alternative employment because the prospects were so poor. I may be vastly wrong, but a narrative that relies on disgruntled archaeologists causing mischief for no reason must be deeply suspect. The information I received back in 2012 was that there was resistance to Declan Hurl’s running of the site, not due to any personal dislike of him as an individual, but because of his inability to conduct the excavation in an efficient, professional manner and in accordance with anything resembling modern methods and strategies. On this point, the notes I have received from TLA say that:
Sorry! ...
... My mistake! ...
That’s part of a post for an alternative universe version of this blog … the one where I’m an archaeo-rockstar and go everywhere on my unicorn that constantly vomits rainbows!
No … 2012 … in this reality at least … was a rubbish time for archaeologists … in the aftermath of the 2008 financial meltdown, jobs were few and far between and those that were available were incredibly coveted. This is a period where something in the region of 60-80% of the profession left to find alternative employment because the prospects were so poor. I may be vastly wrong, but a narrative that relies on disgruntled archaeologists causing mischief for no reason must be deeply suspect. The information I received back in 2012 was that there was resistance to Declan Hurl’s running of the site, not due to any personal dislike of him as an individual, but because of his inability to conduct the excavation in an efficient, professional manner and in accordance with anything resembling modern methods and strategies. On this point, the notes I have received from TLA say that:
“[T]he team were struggling on a daily basis to introduce
some kind of professionalism, science and systematic methodology in the face of
a stone wall of ignorance, denial and disregard for archaeology in the form of
Amey and Declan Hurl”.
TLB says that:
“[a vastly experienced archaeologist] did delight in
pointing out his [Declan Hurl’s] multiple incompetencies at every opportunity
(certainly not the best form), but [that person] was almost always correct in [their] assessment in my opinion.”
In replying to Prof
Cooney’s statement that ‘It cannot be a surprise that there were communication
problems between the site director and staff’, Declan Hurl responds that: “the
implication once again being that I was the main cause of the strained
relations between myself and certain—by no means all—members of the excavation
team”. TLB provides a broader picture when they say:
“Yes, DH [Declan Hurl] was certainly the principal
antagonist, and actually yes, the entire crew were unimpressed with his
direction. The fact that some members of the crew were outspoken while others
were not speaks on the job insecurity felt by most sub-contracting
archaeologists than any sense of admiration for DH.”
My assessment of the
available evidence is that Declan Hurl is correct in saying that he had a
number of vocal and vociferous detractors on site, but is deeply disingenuous
in his reporting of their motivations. These were not individuals doing this
for the fun of being annoying, nor were they bored at having to dig a wetland
site with great structural and artefactual preservation. These were, as I have
long stated, highly skilled, experienced, and committed archaeologists who were
outraged at the treatment of the site by Declan Hurl. All the narratives about
this site at this time are in agreement on this point. The fact that he has
attempted to sell this alternate version of events to both his employer and the
archaeological profession at large is nothing short of shameful.
From there we move to
Agenda item 6 – a request for comment on Declan Hurl’s post July 30 2012
history on the site and his employment generally. As this question potentially
touched on several items of Hurl’s personal employment record, I was keen to
tread gently, but still wished for an answer. Here in particular, there are points
that have been redacted at the request of Rodney Moffett.
(RMC) “… So what happened with Declan after the 30th of
July 2012? Up to that point he had been the sole director, he then became
co-director, and by the time the license was renewed in January he was no
longer on the site – the license was renewed solely to Dr Bermingham.”
(RM) “Declan remains an employee of Amey. He remains
working in the field of archaeology. Since that time he has supervised some
excavations, although the number of excavations he has supervised has been
minimal, both because of recession (obviously) and extent of work – none of
those excavations have been in Northern Ireland as such. [Redacted content]”
(RMC) “So, I take it that he didn’t receive any
disciplinary action? Or retraining … mentoring?”
(RM) “He didn’t receive any disciplinary action [Redacted
content]”
(RMC) “I would take it that the final part of my question …
you would very much take the position that, in light of Prof Cooney’s report,
he shouldn’t face censure now?”
(RM) “Ah … I would take that position, yeah. Again, in
terms of lessons learned, I would also take the position that we would not, as
a company, be undertaking any archaeological excavations or major works in
Northern Ireland. Simply, we’re not going to put him into that position again.
Now, that’s not an acceptance that Declan necessarily did anything wrong, but
it’s an acceptance that there is a benefit from having those roles separate.”
It is clear from the
forgoing that the official line from Amey is that Declan Hurl did nothing
wrong, he has not faced any censure, nor should he, nor will he.
Unsurprisingly, this is a position heavily promoted by Declan Hurl himself – it
was not his fault and the whole issue can be blamed on disruptive elements …
aggravated archaeologists … several
seditious scribes from Caesarea ... Samson the Sadducee Strangler ...
whatever self-serving fantasy you like. Declan Hurl’s real achievement here
though is to get his boss to go out and bat for him. In the face of all this
evidence it’s actually quite impressive. Perhaps even more impressive is Rodney
Moffett’s attempt to spin the ‘lesson learned’ of separating Amey from the
archaeological advice they receive. He is keen to promulgate the notion that
this is something that they’ve decided and in no way is it to be taken as an
indication that Declan Hurl was wrong in any way. Obviously, it’s purely
related to the kindness and compassion of Amey that they don’t want to ‘put him
into that position again’ … of course it is ... and
I had next wanted
to move on and request comment on Prof Cooney’s statement that “It does not
appear that RS/Amey and from late 2011 MHPT JV had a coherent or consistent
strategy to mitigate the impact of the road on the crannog”. However, in his
urge to provide a lengthy opening statement, this topic was somewhat covered,
and I felt that there was little need to get him to reiterate the lot again.
(RM) “So, long story short … the crannog was identified and
whilst the location wasn’t finalised in terms of the extents. Because the
ground conditions were so bad we couldn’t manually get in to excavate the
extents, and it wasn’t possible to get machinery in at that stage. Again, Prof
Cooney, for whatever reason, I don’t think has touched on this. There was a
trenching exercise done … early 2011 … January/February time … which was
supervised under license by Declan and some members of staff from
FarrimondMcManus.”
(RM) “Basically, they got down to about a meter’s depth and
then the crannog was waterlogged …”
(RMC) “Yeah … 60cm was the figure given …” [see here]
(RM) “But that obviously informed Declan’s thinking in
terms of what he found at that stage. Declan came back, reported what he found,
produced a report that was submitted to NIEA. At that stage the mitigation of
preserve in situ was considered and it was basically down to, from an
engineering perspective, ‘how do we do this?’ … Pressures of timescale,
pressures of getting the job out, it was decided in partnership with the
Department [DRD] that a ‘design and build’ solution would be sought, so the
contract went out with a contractor-design element. Within that
contractor-design element the preserve in situ approach was clearly documented.
So I do fundamentally disagree with Prof Cooney’s statement that there wasn’t a
clear mitigation strategy – there was. The tenders came back and a consortium
of McLaughlin and Harvey-P.T. McWilliams J.V. [MHPT JV] were ultimately
appointed. Their proposed design solution in that area was to strengthen the
ground through soil mixing and a piling solution with a span across the
crannog. Again, and I don’t have the exact dates, but I know that our
geotechnical team engaged directly with the NIEA on that solution – both prior
to the tender going out and subsequent to the tender coming back, in terms of
‘is this acceptable?’. Now there was differing discussions and differing views
on it, and in fairness to NIEA I don’t want to pick on individuals, but
different individuals had different answers. There was an acceptance from one
[on one] occasion for a pile or a couple of piles to be driven through the
crannog. There was a rejection on another occasion of the same solution.”
This one is hard to
adjudicate on – based on Rodney Moffett’s responses, he is adamant that there
was long-term interaction with NIEA and a well-defined (if evolving) plan in
place to resolve the archaeology associated with the crannog. It may be that
there exists a larger body of communications that were not preserved by NIEA
and not made available to Prof Cooney that show these longer chains of
communication. If such evidence does exist and was made available, it may allow
for a more nuanced picture of the dealings between Amey and the various
government departments, especially NIEA. It may even remove the totality of
that charge, but it would seem unlikely to lessen Cooney’s criticism of Amey
and MHPT JV for lacking a “coherent or consistent strategy to mitigate the impact
of the road on the crannog”. I think that there is much more to be said on this
point, but in the absence of the production and evaluation of evidence beyond
the remit of the original investigation no clarity can emerge from it.
Nonetheless, Rodney Moffett’s comment at the end of the above piece is
interesting in that it expresses a degree of frustration with the inconsistent
advice coming from the two Senior Inspectors at NIEA who dealt with the case. I
put it to him that this lack of a synoptic view from NIEA was identified by
Prof Cooney as, if not a key failing, then as a contributing difficulty to the
Drumclay fiasco:
(RM) “True, but I suppose I feel for NIEA, I have to say,
because I feel that they have been vilified quite a bit – rightly or wrongly –
I don’t know enough about it, but I know the individuals involved were keen to
do the right thing. So, I know that their approach was right … their answers
may have been wrong, and it was frustrating for us at times, but I know they
engaged proactively and they were focused …”
Coming to the issue of
how the whole Drumclay fiasco reflects on
Amey’s perceived ability to manage the resolution of significant
heritage assets Rodney Moffett had this to say:
(RM) “[It reflects on Amey] Extremely badly! As a company,
we employ 300-350 people in Northern Ireland, overall. From a design
perspective, I’ve 100 people sitting in Belfast …”
(RM) “Essentially, Northern Ireland’s a small place … any
negative comment puts those jobs at risk. That’s a big issue for me – that’s a
major issue for me! I’m not in any way seeking to belittle what happened on
this job, or this crannog, because these are major issues that do need to be
properly understood, and I accept that. But, equally, I think there’s a
difference between lessons and guilt, and what frustrates me is that reading
some of the comments, there’s a presumption of guilt, rather than a desire to
understand and that’s one of the reasons that – probably my biggest issue –
with the way this subsequent work has been undertaken … I think it’s been more
of apportioning blame as opposed to ‘how do we make this better?’”
(RMC) “I’ll say that a lot of the comments in Prof Cooney’s
report maybe do take a slightly ‘blame’ side. However, his core
recommendations, they are very much forward-looking and, from my perspective, I
do think it’s important that blame both at a corporate and an individual level
is apportioned. Not, necessarily, to drum people out of jobs … I don’t want
that if that’s not appropriate. But for people to say ‘I did this … this was my
responsibility … I wasn’t up to the task … I didn’t do it’ … at all levels …
everybody involved in this needs to take away ‘lessons learned’.”
(RM) “… but if you can understand from my perspective … I
talked to you of 300 people … I’ve got one archaeologist … I’ve got one
archaeologist … we’ve done numerous projects that have had archaeological
involvement ... all of them have gone relatively well ... bar one! The one that
has gone wrong has gone really wrong, but the frustration from my perspective
is that I know that all are putting their full effort in … and it’s easy for me
to turn around and say ‘listen, we relied on what the NIEA said to us!’ … and
to a degree we did, but that’s simplifying the situation too much. There’s a
level of interpretation that we all have to continuously bear in mind and learn
lessons from, and we have done that …”
I suppose that the
first thing to take note of here is that there does appear to be a genuine
interest on the part of Amey in learning from this situation and ensuring that
it is never repeated. Perhaps I’m being over sensitive when I feel that his
point that “any negative comment puts those jobs at risk” attempts to shift the
blame for a deterioration in Amey’s image from their own actions to vocal
commentators such as myself. I would make the point that any damage to Amey’s
public image would stem wholly and solely from their own actions and
mismanagement of this site and Declan Hurl as Site Director, rather than the
reporting of the situation. It is equivalent to attempting to blame Woodward
and Bernstein for committing the burglary of the Democratic National Committee
headquarters. While both Rodney Moffett and I would be keen to analyse the
situation to understand the lessons that need to be learned so that this never
happens again, I do believe that responsibility should be identified at the
level of both institute/company and individual. Without this degree of resolution of culpability
being identified, how can individuals ever be retrained, mentored, tutored,
re-educated to improve their performance? By the same token, the identification
of individual-level responsibility would potentially indicate that some
personnel be pensioned off to ‘spend more time with their families’ or simply
told to find alternative employment. Without this level of investigation and
correction I firmly believe that another iteration of the Drumclay fiasco is
inevitable.
My final question to
Rodney Moffett was one that I had not included in the original blog post, but
had begun to think was quite salient: which company/body is named on the
contract as being responsible for organising and funding the post-excavation
phase?
(RM) “… nobody is named on the contract …”
(RMC) “… excuse me while I swear internally for a moment …”
(RM) “No, sorry, when I say that, essentially, as I
understand … I’m not party to this … so I can’t be crystal on this … in terms
of the Cherrymount job as such, the post-excavation works is an issue between
the two Departments … so in terms of contractual … there’s been no contract
between the Department and ourselves or the Department and [MHPT JV] to …”
(RMC) “Right … the one thing I want a very clear answer, if
you can give it, please, is – you’re saying that Amey is not standing in the
way of any post-excavation activities?”
(RM) “No!”
(RMC) “Nothing is going to come through you?”
(RM) “No!”
(RMC) “You’re not going to be in a position to channel
funds?”
(RM) “Not at all …”
(RMC) “Rubberstamp anything?”
(RM) “No.”
(RMC) “Thank you! That is a very important question!”
Despite my initial
reaction, I think there’s some good news here. Amey are in no position to
influence the process of post-excavation analysis and publication. No monies
are going through them and they’re in no position to delay the process. However,
the more worrying issue is that, based on Rodney Moffett’s understanding of the
situation, there was no formal agreement in place before the commencement of
the excavation to ensure that the post-excavation phase would be properly
resourced and funded. It can only be regarded as extremely worrying that the
ultimate fate of the site archive and its publication appears to reside in a
grey area to be debated over by two government departments. Beyond the
watchfulness that now needs to be placed on NIEA, DRD and any engineering
companies undertaking large-scale infrastructural works, this question of how
the excavated materials are stored, conserved, curated, and published are of
the highest importance. For now, all we can do is watch and wait.
That’s pretty much
where the interview with Rodney Moffett ended. However, there are still a
number of points of rebuttal that Declan Hurl raises in the Apologia that should also be addressed
here. In my interview with Rodney Moffett I stated that:
(RMC) “I would say that Prof Cooney gets it absolutely
right when he says that ‘The excavation director maintained the view that the
occupation level was shallow, focused on the Late Medieval period in date and
that construction levels were being exposed.’ And in the report he says ‘This
view is not supported either by the archaeological literature on the nature and
dating of crannogs, nor by the geotechnical drawings of the crannog ... which
were submitted as part of the discussion over a mitigation strategy.’ So, from
a lot of different perspectives he should have known better and you can’t
explain that away by being ‘a bit out of touch’ …”
I also expressed the
personal opinion that I felt Declan Hurl may have been overly influenced by the
results of a programme of dating Fermanagh crannogs carried out while he was
employed by the NIEA. The programme centred on the radiocarbon dating of
surface timbers from a selection of crannogs and largely returned late dates. I
had heard the opinion emanating from NIEA personnel in the past that the
Fermanagh crannogs were late in the sequence and I felt that it may have had a bearing on his thinking.
His reasoning may still have been wrong, but at least there would be context
for it. However, in the Apologia
Declan Hurl claims that Prof Cooney’s assessment is false. In essence, he
appears to argue that his conclusion that the crannog was shallow and dated to
the Late Medieval period was based on the fact that the portion dug during the
exploratory excavations was shallow and … you guessed it … dated to the Late Medieval period. He goes on to state that:
“I had referenced the archaeological literature
(principally Fredengren and O’Sullivan) in that report and was well aware of
the current interpretations and evidence on the chronology of such sites; I was
not, however, about to ignore all of the evidence recovered from the
investigation—that would have been very unprofessional.”
The ‘Fredengren’
referred to is Christina
Fredengren, author of numerous pieces on Irish crannogs, including Crannogs:
a Study of People's Interaction With Lakes, With Particular Reference to Lough
Gara In the North-West of Ireland. ‘O’Sullivan’ obviously refers to Prof Aidan O’Sullivan of
UCD. His PhD thesis was on The
Social and Ideological Role of Crannogs in Early Medieval Ireland and
has written extensively on all aspects of crannogs and Early Medieval
settlement and economy, including a beginners introduction to the subject: Crannogs:
Lake-dwellings of early Ireland. So, Declan Hurl's defence hangs on the idea that
although he had access to, and claimed familiarity with, the works of the major
thought leaders in the field, he ignored them and all their publications and
all of their combined expertise because the preliminary investigation – that
stopped at a mere 0.60m – indicated a late date.
I’ll be honest and say
that Declan Hurl’s rebuttal here did give me pause. What sort of depths and
thicknesses should we be expecting from these sites? Was there no reason to
expect that the Drumclay site should or could have been so deep? Had Declan
Hurl been judged too harshly by Prof Cooney, by myself, and a host of other
commentators? Were we all wrong? There’s a long list of things I am not, and
somewhere on there is the term ‘Wetland Archaeology Expert’, so I decided
to ask one for their professional opinion. Even after a brief series of
exchanges with this individual (hereafter TLC), it was clear to me that several
of the most significant Irish crannog type sites have considerable depth. For
example, Ballinderry I in County Westmenth was approximately 5m in depth, while
Lagore in County Meath was found to be around 3m in thickness. Even the
partially waterlogged Early Medieval site at Deerpark Farms, County Antrim (a
site that Declan Hurl actually worked on), was the same general thickness of
several meters. The only sensible conclusion is that, had he been in any way
familiar with the published evidence, Declan Hurl would have known that
crannogs (and Early Medieval sites generally) could be of several metres in
thickness. That he did not embrace this as even a vague possibility indicates a
catastrophic failure of professionalism.
A few lines later in
the Apologia he states that:
“I was reporting my conclusion from the evidence recovered,
i.e. that the depth of the accessible occupation phase, as opposed to
construction material, appeared to be shallow.” [emphasis mine]
It appears that Declan
Hurl’s conceptualisation of the Drumclay crannog was one of a thick
‘Construction Layer’ overlain by a shallow ‘Occupation Layer’. Not only is this
view not supported by the available literature, it was proven not to be the
case on excavation of the Drumclay crannog. That excavation happened in 2012
and the Apologia wasn’t published
until 2015, but it is clear that he is still clinging to this flawed
understanding of the site and attempting to use it as a justification for his
approach. Not only that, but even a basic understanding of the available literature (especially that by such luminaries as
In reply to Prof
Cooney’s statement that Declan Hurl “assumed that there was limited, very
shallow Late Medieval occupation of the crannog and that the site was
constructed in this period” TLA clearly asserts:
“That statement is true. Hurl told the supervisors that it
dated to something like 1450AD and that’s how old it was. He got that date from
a sample he took from his 50cm [60cm] test trenches. It never occurred to him
(or he didn’t want to admit) that it might be older and that it might be
several meters deep. Any first year archaeology student knows that crannogs can
date back to [the] fifth or sixth century and that they can be very, very deep. He
says he was relying on “all the evidence recovered from the investigation” but
that was just one sample which was pretty much taken from the top soil! The
fact that he thought it could be excavated in a mere four weeks proves that either
he knows nothing about crannogs or he was willing to destroy it for his
paymasters.”
This sentiment is
clearly echoed by TLB:
“This dichotomy between ‘occupation’ and ‘construction’, of
course, is the very crux of what what went wrong. Why he believed, on coming
down onto the uppermost occupation layer that it was the only occupation layer,
without any wish to investigate further leads one to suspect that he was either
utterly incompetent, or utterly unprofessional in his willingness to sacrifice
potential archaeology for Amey.”
Regarding his
management of the day-to-day running of the Phase 1 excavation, Declan Hurl
argues that:
“In Section 6 you [Prof Cooney] stated that I was the only
one who could assign context numbers. I can only query the source of this
remark; … I assigned blocks of context numbers to each area, and those were
assigned individually and as required by the relevant supervisors.”
This is directly
contradicted by my correspondent TLA who says:
“[H]e [Declan Hurl] told the supervisors that he was the
only one who could allocate context numbers. That quickly became an issue
because immediately there were many, many contexts to be labelled and it held
up progress considerably. It also made the excavation very inefficient because
he was rarely on site.”
Referring to Declan
Hurl’s Apologia in Archaeology Ireland TLB says:
“This statement is incorrect as it stands. If pushed, I
would call it an outright lie. Under DH’s directorship, only he could give out
context numbers. When the supervisors met, during one of his long absences from
site, and agreed to take blocks of numbers by quadrant, (perhaps towards the
end of the second week on site?), Declan’s initial reaction on finding out was
to be furious at them. I believe by the final week he did start to hand out
small blocks of numbers.”
With reference to the
presence of a camera on site, Prof Cooney noted that there was only one camera
on site and that no photographic register had been instituted. Declan Hurl agrees
with this assessment, adding that ‘For a site of this size, one camera was all
that was required’. He also notes that this was his personal camera and
photographic title board and that both were “on site throughout the working day
for use by the crew, even when I was not on site myself.” I’ll say that I’ve a
bit of sympathy for Declan Hurl here – I’ve run sites where I’ve been forced to
make my own camera available as the site camera. I clearly remember one
occasion where I was directing two excavations in two different counties and,
having to divide my time between the two, could only make the camera available
for limited times at each. The difference between my experience and Declan
Hurl’s is that I’m not attempting to pass the experience off as an appropriate
and professional response to the needs of either excavation. At that time I was
in the employ of a less
than proficient consultancy that could not organise the purchase of, or apparently afford, an
appropriate camera. On the other hand, Declan Hurl worked for Amey Plc, a
company described by Rodney Moffett as “focused on providing a service to our
clients and our underlying ethos is all about progression, collaboration, and
working with people.” This is also a company that, in 2012 alone, had over
£5.1M in the bank and a net worth of in excess of £37M – I think they can
afford a couple of cameras!
Commenting on this
point TLA says:
“[T]he only camera on site was his personal camera which is
unprofessional and very inefficient because he was rarely on site and would
take the camera with him. … There was so much to photograph that it severely
held up progress when the camera was not on site. It is also essential to have
a photograph register for obvious reasons!! The supervisors made the register.”
TLB confirms this
assessment:
“He would leave site for hours at a time and take the
camera with him. This happened often.”
I do take exception at
the way Declan Hurl appears to pass over the fact that for a complex excavation
that lasted for over a month he did not see the need to produce a photographic
register. Anyone with even the most basic experience of working on or directing
an archaeological excavation will know that a comprehensive, detailed
photographic register is not a ‘would be nice to have’ item, it is a basic
requirement. The fact that he does not appear to view it in these terms speaks
to a profound lack of professionalism on his behalf. I would suggest that
anyone looking for the source of the disenchantment of a remarkably capable and
experienced excavation crew, not be taken in by talk of ‘agitators’, but look
instead at the multiple and significant failings of the Site Director.
In his rebuttal to Prof
Cooney’s belief that he did not have an effective environmental strategy, and
that what existed was improvised by the Site Supervisors, Declan Hurl states:
“The policy on site was clear: two-litre samples, or as
near as practicable, were collected from all organic strata and fills; all
wooden features were to be sampled at their ends to identify species and tool
marks, and to provide material for radiocarbon testing; all other suitable
strata and fills were also to be sampled as appropriate for analysis and
testing; unless they were being worked on or recorded, wooden elements on site
were covered by plastic sheeting. All samples were appropriately labelled and
bagged/wrapped; all wooden elements were individually identified, numbered and
depicted on site drawings. A register of the material from the collapsed north
section was created, though I admit that an overall site register was not kept.
… Are you seriously contending that this took place without my direction,
input, knowledge or approval?”
To TLB’s mind, this
description bears no resemblance to reality as it was experienced on site. TLB
says:
“No. There was no clear direction from DH regarding
sampling – at least to the main crew. It did feel very much that the
supervisors were improvising a strategy as they went along and this is
reflected in the differing approaches – minimal to start, and obsessively sampling
as the project continued.”
TLA expands on this,
acknowledging that there was a rudimentary sampling strategy communicated to
the Site Supervisors, but that it was ill thought out and inefficient, and it
was certainly poorly communicated:
“[T]he supervisors were told that they were to take just
three samples; one from the top, one from the middle and one from the bottom
[of the crannog as a whole]. This was breathtakingly insufficient,
unprofessional and unscientific. There was no instructions about what type of
samples were required and for what type of analysis, for example, wood for c14
dating, tree ring dating, lipid analysis, moss, seeds, nuts etc. etc. Nothing
of that nature was discussed with the supervisors.”
Specifically referring
to Declan Hurl’s claim that wooden elements were adequately recorded, TLA says:
“He had no strategy regarding wood. The supervisors knew
that they had to sample wood and improvised a strategy. They placed the wood in
Tesco freezer bags and cling film bought with their own money. There was
nowhere to store the wood so it was placed in the tool shed. There were no wood
working sheets provided (on a crannog excavation!).”
Addressing Declan
Hurl’s final point: “Are you seriously contending that this took place without
my direction, input, knowledge or approval?” my contacts are unanimous in their
denunciation. TLB says:
“That is certainly my impression having spent six weeks on
the site”
TLA conveys the same
message, if in more forceful terms:
“[Y]es! It did! Myself and [a vastly experienced
archaeologist] had both directed sites previously ... Declan gave us hardly any
direction at all. We improvised the entire sampling strategy, storage and
excavation strategy. Hurl wouldn’t provide us with a level even though we begged
for days. The site eventually got one because Amey was informed that it was
holding the dig up and so they gave the site a spare one.”
Declan Hurl argues
that:
“You [Prof Cooney] reached the conclusion that ‘the central
issue was the non-professional standard of the conduct of the excavation under
the site director’, i.e. myself. As I have addressed the issues outlined in the
review prior to this judgement, I can only assume that other, more damning
evidence was collected but not specified in the document, and I am therefore
unable to respond.”
While I cannot speak to
whether or not Prof Cooney had additional information that he did not include
in his report, I can present the consistent testimony of two individuals who
were present on site during the Phase 1 excavation. Their statements not only directly
contradict the narrative put forward by Declan Hurl, but comprehensively support
the assertions made by Prof Cooney. While Declan Hurl may wish to portray his Apologia as a definitive statement of
rebuttal that settles all accusations in his favour, it is no such thing. In
the light of the comments made by both TLA and TLB, there is no need for ‘other,
more damning evidence’ – the conclusions drawn by Prof Cooney can be seen to be
well reasoned, balanced, and founded in reality. Let me say this again – loud
and clear – so there’s no mistake about it: ‘the central issue was the
non-professional standard of the conduct of the excavation under the site
director.’ Prof Cooney says it, TLA says it, TLB says it, everyone I’ve spoken
to that worked on that site says it, the only person who thinks differently is
Declan Hurl!
In a later section of
the Apologia he goes on the attack,
refuting Prof Cooney’s statement that ‘NIEA and RS/Amey and Dr Bermingham
worked well together through regular progress meetings and managed Phase 2 of
the excavation very successfully’. Declan Hurl states:
“This is quite at odds with the reports from the time and
with various of the submissions to the subcommittee, which record frequent
frustration and exasperation”
To the best of my
knowledge, this is the first time that this allegation has been made publicly, though I had been previously aware of it. I don’t presume to know
all the details of such frustrations and exasperations, but I would put one further
detail in the public record that may add some illumination and context to this
remark. As is well known, during the Phase 1 excavations I was approached by a
number of people on the site. What I have not previously made public is that I
also received a number of contacts during the Phase 2 excavation (directed by
Dr Bermingham). There was, however, a distinct difference between these two
sets of ‘troublemakers’. The ones making contact during Declan Hurl’s tenure
had, as we know, serious concerns at the lack of professionalism and
restrictive timescales on the Drumclay excavation. Those seeking to be ‘whistle
blowers’ during the Phase 2 excavations were subtly different – their issues
centred on the imposed end date to the excavation, to ensure that the road was
in place for the June 2013 G8 summit. No one I spoke to during this point had
any negative comment about the direction provided by Dr Bermingham or her site
supervisors. Perhaps there is more to this that I am unfamiliar with, but I
feel that it is important to place this potential piece of context in the
public domain.
Next, Declan Hurl
attempts to contrast his experience at Drumclay with an account of his time on
the A75 Dunragit Bypass in Scotland. He correctly describes the archaeology
uncovered as “very significant” and goes on to label the workforce he was
supplied with as “completely professional, diligent and amiable” … obviously
quite different to how he remembers the Northern Ireland crew! I think it’s
important that we unpack and dissect some of this. The Transport
Scotland website uses the headline “'Stunning' Ancient Archaeological Finds
on A75 Bypass” and the main text describes the discoveries in the most glowing
of terms:
“Finds from across the Mesolithic, Neolithic, Bronze and
Iron Ages, include a rare and complete 130-piece jet bead necklace dating to
around 2000 BC - the first of its kind ever discovered in south west Scotland,
early Neolithic flint tools including a flint arrowhead, and over 13,500
Mesolithic flints.”
“Other fascinating finds include an Iron Age Village, a
Romano-British brooch, a Bronze Age cemetery complex, cremation urns and
pottery sherds.”
There can be no
argument that these discoveries are anything other than significant. Dunragit
is significant, Drumclay is significant … they’re equal! … they’re the same! …
right? Well … no … actually. Significance does not always correlate with
complexity. From what I can see from the pieces I can find on the internet, the
sites investigated as part of the Dunragit scheme were all of the ‘regular’
dryland archaeology types – cuts into subsoil and a variety of fills. There’s
no indication that any of this was of the same level of complexity as the
Drumclay site where waterlogged conditions preserved vast quantities of
environmental evidence and artefacts that simply would not have survived on a
dryland site. I’m in no way attempting to denigrate the work of the archaeologists
on the Dunragit project, merely pointing out that the levels of preservation
and complexity involved are not the same. The next issue is to consider how
exactly was Declan Hurl involved in this work? There are numerous pieces on the
internet covering the discoveries in one way or another. These include the Transport
Scotland website mentioned previously, along with pieces in the online
versions of The
Scotsman, Herald
Scotland, Heritage
Daily, Smart
Highways, the New
Historian website, and a piece in the IFA’s Scottish
Group Newsletter. In none of these is Declan Hurl mentioned in any way. He
is neither the author of any of the pieces, nor is he directly quoted in any of
the reporting. I note this, not to mock him, but to suggest that there would
appear to be a distinct difference in his roles between these two projects. By
way of contrast, I would point to an early piece on Drumclay by the BBC (Nit combs are
'nothing new') where Declan Hurl is photographed and prominently quoted. I
would suggest that the contrast that is being presented is not one of like for
like. Overall, we may reasonably conclude that the Dunragit project related to
a different type of archaeological remains that did not require as developed a
methodological approach as Drumclay, and the Declan Hurl appears to have been
in a different role, possibly one that gave him less direct contact with the
excavation crews, and certainly one where he had less contact with those
reporting on the findings. I think that Declan Hurl’s sleight of hand in
attempting this ‘compare and contrast’ is a distinctly suspect move, intended to obfuscate rather than illuminate.
I would simply state
that it is my opinion that Declan Hurl’s response to Prof Cooney about who
directed the ‘real’ rescue excavation are not only deeply disingenuous and
distasteful, but fundamentally misses the point. The Drumclay crannog required an
excavation of the breadth, quality, and scale that it finally received under
the direction of Dr Bermingham, not the ill-resourced, poorly thought out, and
unprofessional omnishambles it clearly was under Hurl’s direction. I think it
is instructive to contrast Prof Cooney’s description of the Phase 2 excavation
(“It is a landmark excavation and has provided a wealth of data which will
transform our understanding of early medieval Ireland”) with Declan Hurl’s
description of the crannog as:
“a disintegrating mound in the midst of a construction site
with serious time pressures.”
… and …
“a potentially crumbling mound in the middle of a drained
and cracking bog surrounded by construction plant”
Not only do these statements
reveal the very little regard that he had (and would appear to still maintain)
for the site, but it bears restating that the situation was partially caused by
him, Amey, his employers, and McLaughlin and Harvey-P.T. McWilliams J.V., the
subcontractors, along with a catastrophic failure of leadership and oversight
by NIEA. If the site was ‘potentially crumbling’ and ‘disintegrating’, was it
not because of the trenching and dewatering of the bog land carried out by Amey
and MHPT JV? Were the ‘serious time pressures’ not a direct result of Declan
Hurl’s insufficient grasp of the quantity, quality, and physical depth of the
surviving archaeology and his inability to devise an appropriate timescale and
effectively communicate it to his engineering colleagues in Amey? Declan Hurl
presents these facts as though they are somehow external to himself and his
direction of the excavation, when he was a key contributing factor to the
entire Drumclay fiasco.
A running theme through much of these narratives is the professionalism, or otherwise, exhibited by Declan Hurl in his management of the Phase 1 excavation. It is clear from his own account that Declan Hurl regards himself as suitably professional and intellectually equipped to do the job. This is a view not shared by those who were there at that time, nor is it one that Prof Cooney's report supports. Even Rodney Moffett attempts to play this down, claiming that his subordinate may have been somewhat 'old fashioned' in his approach to archaeological excavation. To get a more balanced view, I thought to turn to a neutral source on what a modern archaeological excavation of a complex Early Medieval site should look like. The authors of Early Medieval Ireland AD 400-1100: The evidence from archaeological excavations argue that:
A running theme through much of these narratives is the professionalism, or otherwise, exhibited by Declan Hurl in his management of the Phase 1 excavation. It is clear from his own account that Declan Hurl regards himself as suitably professional and intellectually equipped to do the job. This is a view not shared by those who were there at that time, nor is it one that Prof Cooney's report supports. Even Rodney Moffett attempts to play this down, claiming that his subordinate may have been somewhat 'old fashioned' in his approach to archaeological excavation. To get a more balanced view, I thought to turn to a neutral source on what a modern archaeological excavation of a complex Early Medieval site should look like. The authors of Early Medieval Ireland AD 400-1100: The evidence from archaeological excavations argue that:
“From the mid-1990s the recording of archaeological excavations now involved the use of single context recording, registers of plans, photography and samples, the use of context sheets ... In other words, in contrast to the reliance on the site director's notebook of previous generations, the practice of archaeological research came to involve recording massive amounts of data of many different types.” (O'Sullivan et al. 2013, 33)
As we have seen, crucial elements of the modern archaeological excavation were missing from the Phase 1 excavation, including registers of photography and samples, along with basic items of equipment, such as a Dumpy level. I am of the opinion that when Prof Cooney makes reference to Declan Hurl's use of a site note book, it should not be seen solely in the context of the argument around whether or not it's an item of personal property, but as an emblem of how archaeology was conducted at the middle and end of the last century. While there is no issue with the use of additional methods of recording, it remains an anachronism and a symbol of how out of date his methods were. Taken in conjunction with his apparent lack of understanding of site morphology of key excavations published in 1936 (Ballinderry I), 1942 (Ballinderry II), and 1950 (Lagore), the true breadth of Declan Hurl's 'old fashioned' approach begins to take shape. When one contrasts this with the description given by O'Sullivan et al. (2013, 33) of the younger generation of Irish archaeologists (many of whom were on the Phase 1 excavation), who learned their craft during the days of the 'Celtic Tiger', the image is even more stark:
“These were people who arguably developed significantly better excavation skills than had ever been used before in Irish archaeology. One need only point to the recognition by these archaeologists ... that many early medieval settlements with multiple enclosures were actually the outcome of multiple phases of activity, to be subtly distinguished from each other. These were also excavations supported by a full range of scientific, environmental and absolute dating techniques.”
It is truly difficult to continue this analysis without feeling that I'm being overly harsh in my criticism of Declan Hurl's abilities, but I believe that they are just and they are fair. Despite his protestations, Declan Hurl's skills as an archaeologist were clearly out of date by at least two decades, if not significantly more. Let me say it again: This is not the "slightly old-fashioned and not in line with modern techniques" that Rodney Moffett may have been led to believe. To put this in context for Rodney Moffett, Mel Ewell, or anyone else reading this from Amey: how would you feel about having an engineer on site whose skillset remained unchanged from the mid-1990s and also appeared ignorant of significant developments during the previous half century? Why don't y'all send me a postcard about how good that job would go for you?
Finally, I want to turn
to Declan Hurl’s closing remarks, where he says that as the document has been
presented to the Northern Ireland Assembly and made public that an apology is
no longer sufficient. He will now “consider how best to further pursue the
matter.” The obvious implication is that he is contemplating taking legal
action to remedy the “slight it [the report] has inflicted both on my
professional abilities and on my personal integrity.” My first reaction to this
is to say: please do! It would be to the benefit of everyone involved to put
all the facts before a judge and have the matter adjudicated on once and for
all. I say ‘to the benefit of everyone involved’, but I have no reasonable
expectation that Declan Hurl could possibly come off well in such a situation
where facts are under consideration and not the egregious spin that he attempts
to place on them. My second reaction to this statement was ‘what the devil were
you thinking making this threat?’ Either one is going to do it or one is not –
why go to the trouble of penning the Apologia
only to end it with ‘a retraction is not good enough, but I’ll have to think
about what I do next’? Is there any conceivable way in which this threat can be
regarded as ‘thought through’? – it has all the depth of a juvenile revenge
fantasy cooked up in the shower: ‘I know what I’ll do! I’ll threaten to sue
them! That makes grownups scared! It’ll be brilliant! I’ll have my day in court
and then they’ll see!’ I don’t mean to be overly harsh, but if anything speaks
to the lack of professionalism exhibited by Declan Hurl, nothing is quite as
eloquent as this closing statement.
Conclusions
I’ve got to thank
Rodney Moffett for agreeing to schlep across town to come talk to me directly.
He really wanted to engage and put the Amey point of view across and,
potentially, remove some of the tarnish caused by the Drumclay fiasco. He had
several valid points to make and brought additional context and explanation
around certain events. Although he attempted to mount a robust defence of
Declan Hurl as an Amey employee, his words were nuanced and attempted to bring
balance to the situation. His admission that there were failings in Declan
Hurl’s management of the Phase 1 excavation contrasts markedly with Hurl’s own
account, where he attempts to paint himself as a consummate professional and
the wronged party in this series of unfortunate events. For all of Rodney Moffett’s attempts at
explanation and reconciliation, it is clear that he has unwisely based much of
his own narrative on Declan Hurl’s flawed and self-serving account. I fear that,
laudable defence of a company employee aside, Rodney Moffett has somewhat
impinged on his own reputation and reliability by attempting to pass off such misrepresentations
as fact. In his position as Associate Director of Amey NI, I would imagine that
his abilities to sift through various sources of data to quickly reach their
essential points is paramount. His apparent failure to see through fabrications
created by his employee – fabrications that can be easily and comprehensively
shown to be (at best) disingenuous – are unlikely to endear him to his
superiors.
Declan Hurl begins his Apologia by stating that it was his
fervent expectation that Prof Cooney’s report would be “objective,
comprehensive and penetrating.” Despite devoting significant energies to
creating an open letter that amounts to an excursion into the Land of Smoke
& Mirrors (which is considerably nicer than saying that it deliberately
obfuscates, misdirects, and attempts to promulgate outright falsehoods), it is clear
that Cooney’s assessment is just that: objective, comprehensive and penetrating.
True, it could have been clearer on some points and a wider remit may have
produced a report with significantly different nuances in certain places. For
example, it might have been clearer that Declan Hurl was not wholly personally
responsible for the unlicensed trenching on the site that was an alleged breach
of the Historic Monuments and Archaeological Objects (Northern Ireland) Order
1995. Nonetheless, it is clear that there was potentially illegal activity that
was not investigated by the NIEA or passed to their legal team to pursue a
prosecution. Such a wider remit may also have demonstrated a much longer relationship and series of contacts between NIEA and various other key stakeholders. As for the remainder of the charges brought by Prof Cooney, it is
clear from the testimony of TLA and TLB that these are accurate, fair, and
appropriate. Declan Hurl attempts to recast Prof Cooney’s report as a “misrepresentative,
selective and partisan document”, when it couldn’t be further from the case. If
one had to pick between Cooney’s report and Hurl’s Apologia, it is clearly the latter that deserves this accolade. Despite
all the points raised and the rebuttals that Declan Hurl has attempted to bring
to his defence, it is clear that (with the possible exception of the issue of
the illegal trenching) Prof Cooney’s assessment of the man and his methods
is correct. Declan Hurl’s attempts to ignore some evidence, selectively use
certain facts, and concoct elements of pure fantasy can only be regarded as
desperate actions. Topping it all off with a childish threat to take everyone
to court only adds a sense of sadness at the desperation he has reached. To be
sure, Declan Hurl is not alone in his culpability of what went wrong at
Drumclay. Prof Cooney’s report includes ample evidence of strategic failures by
numerous individuals within NIEA, DRD, Amey, and McLaughlin and Harvey-P.T.
McWilliams J.V. The difference is that, while there has been some resistance,
those I have spoken to or have made public statements on the matter are keen to identify where the
issues were and how they can learn from these. Only Declan Hurl has taken the
radical step of attempting to rewrite facts and spin events to make himself
look like the injured party, and suggesting that he’ll sue anyone who disagrees
with him. For this reason, I can only see his Apologia as a contender for the title of Longest Suicide Note in
Irish Archaeology. Whatever chances he may have had in rebuilding his career
and reputation are, to my mind, effectively dashed in the revisionist maelstrom
he has attempted to conjure up about himself.
I’ve said before that
it is not for me to decide what happens to any individual in this case. Rodney
Moffett has made it perfectly clear in his statements that Declan Hurl has not,
nor will he, receive any form of official reprimand or chastisement. However,
in the light of the recurring reimaginings, reinterpretations, and statements
that are inconsistent with reality that are presented in the Apologia, it must surely be time to
review this position. Any individual who can so determinedly misrepresent
events and facts in the cause of self-preservation can only be a liability to
any company that employs them and anyone that defends them. As I have stated
before, the review of archaeological licencing currently underway at the NIEA,
must give serious consideration to whether Declan Hurl can be regarded as a
sufficiently fit and competent person to be allowed any future role on any
archaeological excavation in Northern Ireland. In the light of the nature of
the Apologia this can only be of even
greater importance. By the same token, I feel that it is incumbent on the various
professional bodies, such as the Institute of Archaeologists of Ireland, to urgently reassess the actions of key players in the
Drumclay fiasco to determine whether or not they should be stripped of their membership.
What is obvious is
that, despite the publication of Prof Cooney’s report, there is still some way
to go to obtain consensus around the nature of the events that led to the
Drumclay fiasco and who bears responsibility for them. While Rodney Moffett is
keen to defend his employee and the company they both work for, he is at least
realistic in accepting that there were gross failures in the process that need
to be addressed. I am of the opinion that his acceptance of Declan Hurl’s
version of events, apparently at face value, does him no favours and shows poor
judgment. However, I believe that there is a genuine willingness on his part to
ensure that lessons are learned and that Amey is never again associated with
the form of omnishambles that developed at Drumclay. Declan Hurl, on the other
hand, appears to be of the opinion that he is the victim of events and the target
of a conspiracy determined to twist every fact and action against him. This is
simply not the case, and his Apologia
is a partisan, biased, misleading, mendacious, fallacious, and disingenuous document
that will surely haunt him for the remainder of his involvement in archaeology.
Note
The first part of the
title of this post is from Bob Dylan’s ‘I Shall Be Released’. The full lyric
reads:
Standing next to me in this lonely crowd
Is a man who swears he’s not to blame
All day long I hear him shout so loud
Crying out that he was framed
… but, of course, you
knew that
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