Association of Young Irish Archaeologists Conference 2025
The TII Archaeology and Heritage section attended the Association of Young Irish Archaeologists (AYIA) conference held at University College Dublin on Saturday 15 February. The last AYIA conference was some years ago, so the organisers are to be heartily congratulated on reviving the Association and providing a much-needed platform for early career archaeologists under the banner of ‘Emerging Voices in Archaeology’
TII was one of several sponsors from across the heritage sector to provide support for the event and was represented at the conference by Rónán Swan, TII Head of Archaeology and Heritage, and Michael Stanley, TII Archaeologist. They spent the day promoting TII’s heritage activities and highlighting the many ways that the fruits of this work is disseminated for the benefit of the public and heritage experts alike (for instance, via the TII Digital Heritage Collections).
In particular, they emphasised the myriad TII datasets now freely available for study by established and emerging scholars and were delighted to note that several conference speakers had based their research on sites and artefacts excavated on TII projects.
As a leading commissioner of archaeological investigations in the country, TII participated in a lunchtime Careers Fair to speak to students about the range of career options in Irish archaeology and drew their attention to some of the key skills shortages being experienced across the profession.
TII Archaeology and Heritage looks forward to supporting next year’s AYIA conference and would warmly encourage students elsewhere on the island to take up the challenge and opportunity of organising a similar event in 2026. We wish the organisers, speakers, and attendees who contributed to AYIA 2025 every success in their archaeological careers and hope to see them working on TII projects in the very near future.