So much will never be looted or destroyed because of this law. As an Irish person who has spent some time working as an archaeological grunt (basically, I dig then as soon as I spot something, pass it over to a real archaeologist) - this is a hugely important law. Because, for large developers, the immediate response on finding something is to hide/destroy it so that they don't lose money while an archaeological survey is carried out. And for landowners, I wager a majority are likely to keep it as a curio if it doesn't look valuable.

The fact is that owning a piece of farmland doesn't give you ownership of our country's heritage. Nor should it. You get to raise cows on the land. You don't get to mine it (without permission), you don't get to turn it into a housing development (without permission), and you don't get to turn it into an archaeological dig site (without permission).