In the early 80s a couple of lads found the Derrynaflan hoarde. A collection of stunning religious artefacts dating from the 9th century.
This resulted in a whole legal mess where they were demanding a payment from the state of what would be arounf €25 million in todays money, after months of legal arguing they got a payout of what would be around €200k today. While this was ongoing there was an explosion in the number of people going out metal detecting for similar items and it's almost certain some items were found and not delcared to the state.
So to protect the nations heritage - and we have a lot of it - from being scavenged these strict laws were introduced.
This resulted in a whole legal mess where they were demanding a payment from the state of what would be arounf €25 million in todays money, after months of legal arguing they got a payout of what would be around €200k today. While this was ongoing there was an explosion in the number of people going out metal detecting for similar items and it's almost certain some items were found and not delcared to the state.
So to protect the nations heritage - and we have a lot of it - from being scavenged these strict laws were introduced.