This article attempts to summarize the ninth-century evidence for Viking settlement based on recent excavations in Dublin, mainly from the site at Temple Bar West (96E245) and South Great George’s Street (00E0414)(Simpson 1999: eadam 2004), and a smaller site at Ship Street Great (99E01772). These two large-scale excavations, the former in the north-east corner of the tenth century settlement, the latter outside this settlement on the south-eastern side, have finally begun to produce evidence that sheds light on the early development of ninth-century Dublin, a subject we know relatively little about (Figs 1 and 2).
 

What we do know is historically based. According to contemporary Irish annalistic sources, the Vikings first appear raiding along the Irish coast in the late eighth century but these initial raids were confined to the maritime settlements and there was little penetration inland (Mac Shamhráin 2002, 43-5). By the AD 830s, however, the raiding parties were larger and more organized, capable of navigating the internal waterways system and leading ultimately to the establishment of various permanent bases. One such ship fortress or ‘longphort’, as the annals call it, was established at Dublin in AD 841, presumably after the suppression of the pre-existing monastery of Dubh linn although little is known of its fate. The new Dublin settlement, crammed with warriors, quickly became a force to be reckoned with and the inhabitants could no longer avoid becoming enmeshed in the Irish political scene, the annals revealing they acted as mercenaries for various Irish kings. The sources also reveal details of the numbers operating out of the longphort, which gives some indication of its military capacity: in one single year it lost 1,000 fighting men in various battles, which were replaced by the simultaneous arrival of 140 shiploads of warriors in the same year (Duffy 1996, 4).

The longphort was attacked in AD 902 and the Viking inhabitants were expelled from Dublin, according to the Annals of Ulster, ‘so that they abandoned a great number of their ships and escaped half dead after being wounded and defeated’ (Mac Shamhráin 2002, 51) They returned in greater numbers in AD 917 and re-established themselves at Dublin, building a highly successful trading emporium, which flourished until the late twelfth century, when the city was attacked and conquered by an Anglo-Norman force.

The historical records have been complemented, to a great degree, by work done in the 1970s and 80s, which saw the first evidence of the Viking settlement at Dublin dramatically uncovered during excavations in the historic core of the city, around High Street, Christchurch Place, Fishamble Street and Wood Quay (Wallace 1988). These excavations, famous for the remarkable preservation of water-logged deposits, put Dublin on the map in terms of Viking urban studies and this has generated much scholarly work and debate. This early archaeological work has been expanded and augmented by the recent flurry of building activity, courtesy of the ‘Celtic Tiger’, which has resulted in the excavation of derelict sites within the core of the city. The evidence, however, suggests that the earliest levels in the historic core can be dated to the tenth century and no earlier and are therefore related to the documented ‘return’ of the expelled Vikings in AD 902 rather than the initial establishment of the ship fortress or longphort in AD 841. This leaves the crucial question of where was the ninth-century longphort and what evidence still remains to be discovered?

Now, finally, information is beginning to come to light about these very important questions. The first glimmer of hope came from an important but small excavation in the north-east corner of the tenth-century settlement at Parliament Street, at the confluence of the rivers Poddle and Liffey, which was excavated by Scally in 1993. This excavation produced evidence of some sort of a boundary bank system along the west bank of the Poddle, which was associated with a sequence of four domestic Viking buildings. Surprisingly, carbon 14 determinations suggested that these buildings had an 82.6% statistical probability of pre-dating the return of the Vikings in 917 ADⁱ (Gowen with Scally 1996, 10-12: Scally 2002, 17) opening up all sorts of interesting possibilities. Luckily, an opportunity to investigate this corner was presented when this entire block at Temple Bar West came up for re-development in 1996. This excavation, under the direction of the writer, was carried out as a research excavation, which attempted to address the specific research questions generated by the Parliament Street site, namely, was there evidence of ninth-century Viking activity and what was the nature of this activity?

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