Bypass Viking discoveries star in Granary exhibition - Aileen Mulhall

13/10/06, Waterford News & Star

A VIKING sword and spear that lay buried in the grave of its warrior owner for more than a millennium are now stars of a new exhibition of historical artefacts unearthed along the route of the Waterford City Bypass.

The carefully restored iron sword and spear as well as an axe head, shield boss and decorative pin found in the grave now have a new home - the Waterford Museum of Treasures.

The National Museum of Ireland's Director Dr. Pat Wallace has said these and the other great discoveries made along the route of the 26 km City Bypass stretching from Slieverue to Kilmeaden should remain at The Granary, which he has lauded as the best regional museum in the country and a institution of national importance.

He made his comments at the official opening ceremony for the National Roads Authority sponsored exhibition titled Migrants, Merchants and Mariners, last Friday.

The publicity surrounding the discovery of the Wood-stown Viking site as well as the huge local public interest in the Bypass project gave an added air of excitement and anticipation to the opening performed by Transport Minister Martin Cullen.

Granary Museum curator Eamon McEneaney says this exhibition is a huge event for the museum. Not alone is it the first time that objects found in the excavations along the Bypass route over the past four years have been put on public display, but many of the objects and sites discovered were of particular national historical importance spanning 7000 years of Waterford and South Kilkenny's history.

"The exhibition will be open until December 1 and we really want the people of Waterford to come and visit this exhibition," he said.

Artefacts and information displays on archaeological sites that visitors can look forward to viewing at the exhibition include a large vase urn dating from 2000BC that contained the cremated remains of a man that when it was found in a Cist grave at Newrath.

There are detailed reconstruction drawings and information displays on a 2700BC sweathouse, a kind of precursor to a sauna, found at Rathpatrick, Slieverue, and on the earliest vertical water-mill in Ireland found at Dooneen Marsh in Kilotteran. You can also view an impressively conserved saddle and quern stones used for grinding corn at a Fulacht Fiadh in Kilmeaden.

And of course there are the artefacts from Wood-stown, the earliest Viking site in the world found outside Scandinavia.

Among the finds from this 13 acres site that stand out in the exhibition are the collection of weights found at the site that were used by the Vikings to weigh silver when buying and selling goods.

There are also the weapons and armoury found in the Viking warrior's grave dating from 850AD, which is the only full set of Viking warrior armoury to be found together in Ireland. Due to the acidity of the soil in the area there was no trace left of their owner's remains.

Susanna Kelly from another Woodstown, that near Dunmore East, is the archae-ological conservator, who coordinated the intricate and delicate restoration work on these artefacts at UCD's Archaeology Department.

She recalled that the iron sword and spear, which are attached to each other, were completely encrusted in soil and stones and corroded with rust when they first received them in July.

"My colleague Claudia Koehler did the work on all the iron materials and I did all the bronze objects. It is very slow work. What we use is an air abrasive machine to gently remove the layers of corrosion until you come down to the artefact. We also use dental tools. The sword would have taken three weeks of concentrated work while the shield boss took a week."

Susanna almost didn't take on the job because of her heavy workload but was swayed by the fact that the find was from Waterford and it was such an exciting grave as well as the offer of assistance from Claudia.

"I couldn't say no at the end of the day and it's great to see them on display in Waterford," said Susanna, who along with her colleague were praised by Dr. Wallace for the quality of their restoration on the artefacts.

James Eoghan, the National Roads Authority's Project Archaeologist for the City Bypass, said the archaeological investigations along the route began in 2002 and all except one were completed by January, 2005.

In all, there were 105 sites covering 43 acres excavated along the route and he estimated that in the region of 200 archaeological staff worked on the excavations carried out by three private archaeological firms. He said at this stage they estimate that just seven per cent of the Woodstown site has been investigated but the Minister for Environment Dick Roche has advised that further investigations are warranted in order to fully define and map the extent of the site.

Dr. Pat Wallace, in his speech at the exhibition opening, paid tribute to the NRA for it co-ordination of the archaeological excavations along the Bypass route and sponsorship of the exhibition and thanked Minister Cullen for looking after the "great heritage" of this part of Ireland, in particular, the Woodstown site.

Minister Cullen, for his part, pointed out that while there were conflicts between development and preserving our history at times, it was a fact that the vast bulk of the archaeological discoveries in this country were very much led by the development of the country's"

Ancient Viking site 'may be Ireland's own Pompei' as intact town found - Sarah Murphy

05/06/04, Irish Independent

ARCHAEOLOGISTS believe a bustling town of up to 4,000 inhabitants with access to an impressive fleet of ships once thrived on the Viking site recently uncovered in Co Waterford - making it the most significant Viking find in Europe in more than a century.

What experts first thought was an important, but relatively modest, settlement now appears to have been a large town. They suspect the site at Woodstown, five miles fromwhere the city is now, might have been the original Waterford.

The town is understood to date back to the mid-ninth century and was located close to the River Suir. The site measures 1.5km by 0.5km and so far up to 3,000 artefacts havebeen found.

"This is Ireland's equivalent of Pompei," said academic Phd researcher of the site, John Maas. "The find, if it proves to be what we think it is, is the most significant piece of Vikinghistory in Europe. This will be worth up to €200m annually to the local economy ifproperly dealt with by authorities."

Early signs are that the original town of Waterford founded by the Vikings remains virtually intact, with dozens of streets and dwellings just under the soil surface.

Nails, weights, jewellery, silverware, weapons and some ceramics have been found alongwith some ship fragments. Aerial photographs and evidence uncovered at the site haveconvinced archaeologists that a fleet of 120 Viking ships occupied the Woodstown site inthe early ninth century. The fleet would have given inhabitants control of Waterfordharbour and of the three-river system, the Suir, the Barrow and the Norse, allowing themready access upriver to the rich lands and monasteries of these river valleys.

The settlement began as a longphort and that is what archaeologists originally thought the find was. A longphort is a D-shaped fortification made by the Vikings to protectthemselves and their ships from attack. The site was initially discovered when builders ofthe Great Southern Railway (now the Suir Valley Railway), which runs along the edge ofthe Woodstown between the site and the Suir, demolished a mound in a field, which was found to contain bones.

Fortress find 'perhaps most significant in a century'

04/05/04, The Irish Times

The discovery of a 1,200-year-old Viking fortress at Woodstown, near Waterford city, has been hailed by a leading historian as 'the most significant new find in Viking studies in perhaps a century'.

Prof Donnchadh O Corrain, professor of medieval studies at University College Cork, said the site - home to the largest known Viking river camp, or longphort, in Ireland - was 'of international importance'.

Archaeologists have unearthed materials used in ship-building during the Viking raids of the mid-ninth century. The remains of a Viking warrior armed with a spear, a sword and a pin have also been recovered.

Prof O Corrain said there was a 'high possibility' the body belonged to a Danish chieftain called Rothlaibh, or Rodulf, who has a fort named after him at Dunrally, Co Laois.

He said the warrior had evidently been given a pagan burial, adding 'there may be 50 graves in there. We do not know. But if there is one there is the possibility of there being very many more.'

The longphort, which dates from 850-870, was believed to have been used as the command headquarters of Rothlaibh who sent raiding parties from Waterford up the Barrow, Nore and Suir rivers. The fortress dates from the second wave of Viking invasions, more than 50 years after the first recorded Viking raid in Ireland at Rathlin Island off the coast of Antrim.

Some historians believe Rothlaibh was the son of Harold, a former king of Denmark who had been expelled from Denmark in 827. According to one theory, Rothlaibh, or Rodulf, left Ireland in or around 862 to lead a group of Vikings on the River Rhine.

Prof O Corrain said the Woodstown longphort may have been a base not just for ship-building, but for the trading of slaves. Among the 350 items discovered are weights, measures, locks, chains, nails and a decorative figurine.

Only a small number of longphorts have been discovered in Ireland, most notably at Dunrally; Athlunkard, Co Clare; and Annagassan, Co Louth. None are said to be on the same scale as the Woodstown site, which predates Waterford city.

Prof O Corrain added: 'This site is as important as Wood Quay in its own way. It is a major site, not just of Irish but of international consequence.'

Further study of Waterford site to be carried out - Tim O'Brien

06/07/06, Irish Times

Further archaeological investigations are to be carried out at Woodstown, Co Waterford, where more than 5,000 Viking artefacts have already been uncovered.

Commenting on the report of an interim study of the area, Minister for the Environment Dick Roche said despite the large Viking find, the provenance of the site was not clear.

While there was a Viking presence at Woodstown, some archaeologists have argued that the site in question is older than the Viking era and may even be pre-Christian.

The site was uncovered during archaeological investigations associated with the Waterford ring road in 2003. It was subsequently declared a national monument by Mr Roche in a move that meant a section of the ring road being rerouted.

The interim report of the working group set up to advise on future management of the site recommended further study.

According to the Minister "not enough is definitively known about the site, its provenance and the knowledge of our history it has the potential to unlock.

"Therefore, I have approved the working group's recommendation that a supplementary research and investigation project be undertaken to review all available information, including archaeological assessments and investigations, and to undertake targeted excavation to answer specific questions about the site."

The additional work will be completed and a report prepared by the end of the year to assist the working group in making further recommendations to the Minister. The expert group includes the director of the National Museum, members of the Heritage Council, Waterford local authorities, the National Roads Authority and the Department of the Environment.

The group has met a number of times to explore the issues relating to the monument's nature and extent. From this it is hoped to establish its status, protection and long-term management.

It also held a targeted consultation process earlier this year, meeting those it considered had an expert or direct interest in the monument.

"It is worth taking our time with this significant discovery", said Mr Roche. "It has lain in Woodstown for over 1,000 years. We should be patient enough to ensure we have the fullest possible knowledge to hand and thus get our final deliberations and decisions right."

Mr Roche went on to say he believed the site would represent "a valuable addition to this heritage rich and historic region".

A copy of the working group's interim report is available on the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government website.

Minister's decision over halted by-pass 'expected within days' - Sarah Murphy

19/06/04 Irish Independent

EXCAVATION work on an 80-acre site thought to be the original town of Waterford has stopped because the licence to carry out such work has expired.

Archaeologists believe a bustling town of up to 4,000 inhabitants once thrived on theViking site recently uncovered at Woodstown, five miles from modern-day Waterford - making it the most significant find of its type in Europe in more than 100 years.

The planned €300m by-pass is to be sited close to the area in question and now a decision has to be made by the Department of Environment and National Roads Authority (NRA) on the best way to proceed.

Digs will not now recommence until Environment Minister Martin Cullen makes a formal decision whether to excavate or not. His decision is expected to be announced witnindays.

It is understood that any excavation could add at least a year to the construction of the by-pass and a further €40m to its cost.

Local politicians are increasing the pressure on Minister Cullen to make a decision on the matter.

Mary Roche an Independent councillor said she is amazed that work has been allowed tostop at such an important site for the city.

"This road cannot be delayed any further.

"The stop in work since the start of this week is a bad thing. The people of Waterford want the road and the excavation work to go ahead," said Ms Roche.

Richard O'Brien project archaeologist said that while excavation has stopped at the site,other work is continuing.

"We have a good system in place and are taking advice from the National Museum onwhat to do with the artefacts uncovered.

"But we are awaiting the Minister's decision before carrying out any further excavation at the site," added Mr O'Brien.

Experts initially thought their find last Summer was a modest settlement, but to date some 3,000 artefacts have been found.

All early signs indicate that the original town founded in the mid-ninth century remains virtually intact.

A spokesperson for Mr Cullen said that a decision on how best to deal with the find andthe progress of the by-pass will be made as quickly as possible.

Will law be a licence to bypass our heritage?

13/07/04, The Irish Times

On the face of it the State can no longer be held to ransom by delays in major infrastructural schemes, writes Tim O'Brien

It is now 20 years since the M50, Dublin's motorway bypass, was initiated. In the south Co Dublin suburbs of Ballinteer, Dundrum and Sandyford, motorists queue in residential streets to emerge from housing estates. It can take 20 minutes just to reach the main road on the corner. Residents have been enduring the fumes, dust, danger and appalling quality of life for several years. These people are impatient and indignant: support for the "Carrickminders" is low.

The incomplete bypass has also hurt the city economically, in terms of industrial development and additional time and costs to distribution. According to conservationists, however, the Carrickmines Castle conflict could have been avoided when the line of the motorway was drawn in the early 1990s. There was ample evidence already published to suggest that caution be exercised before a road went there. The 1983 Dublin County Council report by archaeologist Paddy Healy alone should have alerted the planners.

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council selected the route and a junction facilitating development of the lands of Jackson Way Properties. That, of course, is now the subject of investigation at the Mahon Tribunal, and has exposed the council to compensation claims in tens of millions of euro. And it set the needs of the residents of Dundrum against the wishes of the conservationists.

It was a situation comparable to the Glen O' the Downs in Co Wicklow where the needs of the people for a decent road into the capital were set against the wishes to retain all of the State's first nature reserve. In Waterford, the needs of a new bypass are now pitted against conservation of one of the oldest and most important Viking sites in Europe; in Meath the need for a new motorway is set against the conservation of archaeology at Skreen - part of the archaeological complex which includes the Hill of Tara, which is as old as the pyramids of Egypt.

It is these conflicts to which the Minister for the Environment, Martin Cullen, said he wished to bring "balance". He would "protect the archaeological heritage by giving directions covering such matters as the preservation, restoration, excavation, recording or demolition of a monument".

But Mark Clinton, who was for two years the director on the Carrickmines archaeological project, has described Cullen's logic as Orwellian: if the Minister ascribes to himself all the power, then there can be no more conflict. "Problem solved".

In granting himself the power to decide on the necessity and level of preservation as well as the power to bulldoze, Cullen has made the archaeological community "dependent on what side of the bed he gets out of in the morning", said Clinton.

"We have zero trust in Minister Cullen - he knew about the Woodstown site (the Viking site in Waterford) for 10 months before news was leaked out by good people saying do you know what we've got here. Yet this is the Minister who is now saying give all the power for conservation to me."

Dr Sean Duffy, head of medieval archaeology in Trinity College Dublin, agrees: "This will push the clock back to the period before the National Monuments Act, back before the 1930s," he said. The mood in conservationist circles is glum. Dr Dave Edwards of University College Cork, co-founder with Roy Foster of the Academy for Heritage, said the legislation lacked "any basic definition of what is a national monument. It comes from the ideological mindset which views heritage as a problem".

Ruadhan McEoin, a seasoned campaigner, added: "it is a 'Special Powers Act' on the heritage agenda".

The new legislation, which allows the Minister for the Environment to decide the level of protection offered to national monuments, will be crucial in a number of flash points over the coming years.

Apart from allowing the immediate go-ahead of the Carrickmines Castle interchange and destruction of part of the castle remains, the Bill would give Martin Cullen a final say on a number of projects which may have previously relied on the protection of the National Monuments Acts. These include:

The building of the M3 motorway through the Skreen Valley in Co Meath. Conservationists claim the valley is part of an archaeological complex which includes the Hill of Tara - archaeological features which pre-date the pyramids. The National Roads Authority has clearance from Bord Pleanala to build the M3, but court challenges had already been planned.

The Viking settlement discovered last year in Cullen's constituency of Waterford. The settlement at Woodstown has been described as one of, if not the most, significant Viking remains discovered in Europe. The complex comprises a settlement at the mouth of the Suir, from where raiding parties would have travelled up the Suir, Barrow and Nore. It also appears to have been a shipbuilding base.

Viking site hailed as most important discovery ever - Jerome Reilly - extract

31/10/04, Sunday Independent

A VAST Viking emporium on the banks of the Suir with an economy based on silver may be one of the most important archaeological discoveries ever made in this country. One of the world's leading experts on the Vikings, Professor Dagfinn Skre of Oslo University, says initial studies of the Woodstown site at Waterford, which had up to 4,000 inhabitants, show it is even more important than originally thought. nerally have only written sources of information.

"From a Scandinavian point of view we are struggling to answer some questions about how many people did go abroad; how were these ventures organised? Were they small bands or were they large groups travelling together? This site may answer these questions."

"We can see the size of the settlement, the intensity, the length of use, how many people were there, what did they do, things like that. It has the potential to yield major new discoveries," Professor Skre said.

Local Lecture on Archaeology and the National Roads Programme

Munster Express, 27/10/04

The Institution of Engineers if Ireland (South-East Region) has announced a public lecture ­ ‘Archaeology and the National Roads Programme: The News From the South East’, which will be presented in the city next month by James Eogan and Richard O’Brien, Project Archaeologists from Tramore House Regional Design Office.

Open to all, it will take place on Tuesday 9th November at 8.00pm in the Tower Hotel, Waterford.

Under the Nation Development Plan (2000-2006) significant improvements are underway to the national road network in the south-east. These developments have an archaeological impact and the NRA is committed to financing a balanced and cost effective approach to archaeological investigation, excavation, and mitigation of this impact on the basis of the developer pays principle.

In order to manage the archaeological implications of the National Roads Programme in a structured and strategic manner, the NRA has appointed regional project archaeologists.

In their talk, Eoin and Richard will outline the background to their work in the south-east and will speak about some of the exciting archaeological finds that have been made as a result of the implementation of the National Roads Programme.

Minister Cullen to receive report on Viking settlement in September

Minister to order excavation of Viking site in Waterford

17/05/04 The Irish Times

The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, is set to order a full archaeological excavation of the Viking site at Woodstown in Waterford, even though it will delay the city's bypass by at least a year.

Mr Cullen said the site, which dates from the ninth century, was of 'enormous importance internationally' and had already yielded some 'quite extraordinary' finds, including lead weights and gaming pieces.

Archaeologists and environmentalists have been calling for a complete excavation of the Woodstown site since it was discovered some months ago, but until now its fate was uncertain.

The Minister, who is responsible for heritage matters, said his Department was engaged with all the relevant bodies, including the National Museum, and he had visited the site in recent weeks.

Dr Pat Wallace, the director of the National Museum, who previously led the excavation of Dublin's Wood Quay site, has made it clear that Woodstown would have to be excavated because it is so important.

Mr Cullen is expected to make an order within the next two weeks under the National Monuments Act requiring a full excavation.

All he would say was that he was working towards an outcome that would 'hopefully satisfy everyone'.

Asked why EU environment ministers, who were meeting in Waterford at the weekend, had not been brought to visit the site, he said there was not enough time. A tour of the Waterford Glass factory was included in their itinerary, however.

Dr Donnchadh O Corrain, professor of archaeology at UCC, who has been prominent in the campaign to protect Woodstown said it was 'terrific' that it would be excavated and he suggested this should be done by the National Museum.

'The museum is the only truly independent institution of the State that is above reproach,' he said, adding that consideration should be given to moving the proposed bypass by 100 to 150 yards to enable the excavation to proceed unhindered.

Dr O Corrain said the tourism potential of Woodstown, which is located in a particularly beautiful setting beside the River Suir, was 'very significant' and a visitor centre should be built at the site to exhibit the archaeological finds.

Some 2,500 items have been recovered so far, mostly from the ninth century. These include Viking spears, swords, gaming pieces, weights, ship's nails and 'lots of locks and keys, suggesting that large numbers of slaves were kept at the site'.

Dr O Corrain complained that the work carried out so far was 'very coarse and unscientific'. It involved using a JCB to strip the topsoil and a metal detector to find items of archaeological interest. The JCB was still there at the weekend.

It is understood that only an exploratory licence was granted for Woodstown and that this licence runs out this week. 'There is no excavation licence, so what is going on here is illegal,' Dr O Corrain said on a visit to the site on Saturday.

Referring to the need for a full excavation, he said: 'Mr Cullen is unlikely to be famous for a misplaced half-mile of road, but he may be famous for protecting one of the most important Viking sites to be found in western Europe.'

Woodstown pre-dates the city of Waterford and was used by the Vikings as a naval base.

Viking site may have been town - Photographs indicate it could be most important in Europe in over a century

05/06/04 The Irish Times

Aerial photographs of a Viking naval base being excavated near Waterford city indicate that the ninth-century settlement is much larger than originally thought, a group of historians has claimed.

Mr John Maas, an archaeologist who commissioned a flight to take the photographs last month, said crop marks in the pictures suggested a large town predating Waterford city was located in the area.

'If we are right this is not a longphort [river camp] but a town. No one can tell for sure until you put a spade in the ground, but the signs are there,' he said.

The National Roads Authority has preserved an area of about 100 square metres near the river-bank for excavation and plans to build over the site later.

However, Mr Maas, a researcher at NUI Maynooth, said the pictures indicated that the settlement extended into a D-shape 1km inland and 1.5km along the riverbank, thereby strengthening the case for a wider excavation.

Echoing this view, Prof Donnchadh O Corrain, professor of medieval studies at University College Cork, said the photographs indicated it was the most important Viking site discovered in Europe in over a century.

'This is as big as Hedeby, if not bigger,' he said in reference to Europe's best-preserved Viking settlement in northern Germany.

Prof O Corrain said crop marks in the photographs indicated the outline of a pattern of streets and houses.

In addition, he cited evidence of the Woodstown site being identified in annals as Camus O Fothaid Tire and dating from 812-900, thus predating Dublin by 30 years.

Such a 'three-generation site' was most likely to contain a major Viking graveyard as well as medieval wooden boats preserved in the soil, he said.

'This is a wonderful discovery of enormous significance for history and archaeology, and the people of Waterford. It could be a huge tourist attraction,' Prof O Corrain said.

Dr Mark Clinton of An Taisce's National Monuments and Antiquities Committee said the photographs strengthened the case for a full scientific investigation under the auspices of a committee of recognised international experts.

The Minister for the Environment, Mr Cullen, who is a native of Waterford, has yet to decide on the site's future, although indications are he will only sanction a limited excavation in order to avoid a costly bypass rerouting.