Dear Madam, - The Enniskillen crannog has gone. Without even a decent burial. While it was on the way out, the people who were escorting it off the premises were strangely quoting as saying in 2012 that it was “unprecedented” and it was “of international importance”. Its remnants were buried under a new road in March 2013 in a foregone conclusion, as if they were pieces of discarded litter.

I have searched on the internet and can find no positive international interest at any time. But we can find lots of old books on crannogs, like that by W G Wood-Martin, “The Lake Dwellings of Ireland” published in 1886. We see a woodcut picture of the excavation of Cloneygonnell crannog in Co Cavan that is a dead-ringer for the deceased Enniskillen example. And many more. So contrary to one of the claims above, the Enniskillen crannog was not “unprecedented”. Nor was the dig well done.

Let’s remind ourselves what a former Minister of the Environment said on 8 March 2013 on the BBC news. (Google it.) He was referring to the terminal dig on the Enniskillen crannog. “It is clear that there was a bad start to all of this. First the crannog was disturbed and then the initial phase of excavation was wanting. That is why I ordered a review of how this situation arose and what can be done to ensure it doesn’t happen again.” He had first announced this review on the BBC on 30 July 2012. This review is now as visible as the crannog. Not at all. Then we remember that this disaster was going on his watch and was carried out under licences issued by his people in the DOE.

I have publicly called for this promised review to be made public. No response, no review.

Now we come to the “international” claim. I have got a bit of international interest in my archaeological work in Ireland and abroad. For example the letter to me from the chief of the National Museum of Denmark, in Roskilde. The letter to me from the chief of the Radiocarbon Laboratory in Groningen, Holland. The chief of the National Museum of Natural History, Paris, invited me by letter to dig with him on an Upper Palaeolithic site near Auxerre, northern France. He invited me back the next year. His colleague invited me by letter to another dig near Draguignan, southern France. That’s international. None of these people would accept the procedures involved at the Enniskillen dig, given the Minister’s admissions.

I can produce the letters involved. I invite any Minister of the Environment to produce any evidence that there was any international interest in the ill-fated Enniskillen crannog that was positive.

There are many good reasons why Ministers of the Environment are here today, gone tomorrow. There is no good reason why the Enniskillen crannog was there for a lot of yesterdays, but is gone today.

Yours faithfully, Fred Carroll