EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Waterford
There are a growing number of excavated sites in Scandinavian Waterford. Figure 284
illustrates the location of the main excavation phase in Waterford city between 1982 and
1993 when a considerable area of the historic core was excavated. The following is based on
general and thematic papers on Scandinavian Waterford and a range of excavation
publications related to the town (e.g. Bradley & Halpin 1992; Hurley, Scully & McCutcheon
1997; Wallace 2001) as well as various recent excavation bulletin reports. It will focus on
various aspects of the town’s layout including its location, defences, streets and pathways,
plots and fences, structures and evidence for craft and industry.
Fig. 284: Location of excavated sites 1982-92 in Waterford City (after Hurley et al. 1997, 3).
LOCATION
The origins of the town at Port Lairge or Waterford are still not completely clear though the
historical sources would indicate that some type of settlement existed by the early tenth
century. In contrast to Dublin and Cork, there is no evidence for any ecclesiastical settlement
before the arrival of the Scandinavians. The name Port Lairge was widely used in the early
Irish annals and has been translated as meaning ‘the port of the thigh’ (Barry 1997, 13).
There are some early annalistic references (Annals of the Four Masters) for the years A.D.
852, 858, 861 and 865 which could be interpreted as possibly reporting the presence of a
Viking fleet from Port Láirge. Another annalistic reference A.F.M. 893 mentions an army
which included the ‘foreigners of Port Lairge’. By the early tenth century, we can be confident
of a Scandinavian settlement at Port Lairge as the Annals of the Four Masters and
Fragmentary Annals of Ireland report that in the year A.D. 910 the ‘foreigners arrived in
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