Viking Dublin

Patrick F. Wallace

In Dublin, the Wood Quay-Fishamble Street archaeological excavations were a constant media story throughout the 1970s and 1980s, when the threat of official destruction brought thousands of protestors into the streets. Although this highly-publicized protest failed to "Save Wood Quay", it did force the most extensive urban excavations ever undertaken in Europe that yielded more unprecedented data about town layout in Dublin 1,000 years ago than about any other European Viking town of the time. Dozens of often nearly intact building foundations, fences, yards, pathways, and quaysides, as well as thousands of artifacts and environmental samples, were unearthed in the course of the campaign. In this book, Dr. Pat Wallace, the chief archaeologist who directed the Wood Quay and Fishamble Street excavations, provides a detailed examination of the implications of these discoveries for...