EMAP_Progress_Reports_2009_2.pdf - The Heritage Council

Waterford
Ireland and took up at Port Lairge’ and ‘a very large fleet of Lochlainn settled at Port Lairge
and plundered the north of Osraige (Barry 1997, 13).
The name ‘Waterford’ appears to have retained its Old Norse-derived place-name and has
been translated as ‘windy fjord’ or fjord of the ram’. The first recorded use of the Latin form
of this name was in A.D. 1096 when the citizens of the ‘civitatem Wataferdiam nomine’ (the
city named Waterford) sought the consecration of a bishop and Malachus was elected by the
clerics and people of the city. A twelfth century account of a mid-ninth century Norse chief
also contains a battle-catalogue which describes a battle at ‘i Vedhrafirdh’ or Waterford (Barry
1997, 13).
The Scandinavian town of Waterford was located within a naturally protective triangular
space flanked by the River Suir to the north and St. John’s River and marshland to the east
and south (Fig. 2). The settlement extended from Reginald’s Tower along the south bank of
the River Suir to the site of Turgesius castle and from there southwards to St. Martin’s castle
before returning parallel to the marshy ground adjacent to St. John’s River (Hurley 1992, 49;
Hurley 1997b, 7).
The triangular enclosure was located on the crest of a ridge- 9.3m OD maximum heightwhich
was over 6m higher than the banks of the River Suir and the marsh of St. John’s River
on its northern, eastern and southern sides. The ground slopes downwards to the north,
south and east of Christchurch cathedral. The crest of the ridge broadens out towards the
west with the break in slope occurring to the north of High Street and south of Lady’s Lane.
The initial longphort of A.D. 914 was probably located at the eastern end of the promontory
in an area subsequently known as Dundory, the eastern tip of which was inhabited by
Reginald’s tower. The placename Dundory might preserve the memory of an earlier fort and
it was still used as an alternative name for Reginald’s Tower in A.D. 1463 and was apparently
used to describe the whole area of the walls between Reginald’s Tower and the
Cathedral/Bishop Palace complex as late as A.D. 1680 (Bradley & Halpin, 1992).
Hurley (1997b, 8-11) has proposed a model for the topographical development of
Scandinavian Waterford based both on cartographic and archaeological evidence. He has
suggested that the Phase 1, tenth-century Dún (identified as Dundory) may have extended
from Reginald’s Tower along the quays for 150m before turning to the south through the
Cathedral to the marsh. The Dún may have contained a single main bisecting street from the
river front to Cathedral Square with the main west gateway on the crest of the ridge to the
north of the cathedral.
The Phase 2 development may have involved the enclosure by ramparts of a further strip
35m wide top the west of the primary nucleus towards the end of the tenth century. This
stage is indicated by an east-west orientation of properties (after Richard and Scalé map of
1764) at variance with the north-south alignment of properties within the triangular space.
This unusual layout is mirrored at the west end of the triangle between the eleventh/twelfthcentury
ramparts and twelfth century wall (Hurley 1997b, 9).
Very little archaeological evidence for the tenth and early eleventh century Scandinavian
settlement has come to light but this can probably be explained since the bulk of the
extensive series of excavations in the 1980s and 1990s took place along Peter Street, High
Street and Lady Lane to the west of the postulated tenth-century settlement.
The Phase 3 development dated to the eleventh/mid-twelfth century represented the single
largest expansion of the settlement with the formal layout of three east-west streets from the
Stage 2 enclosure. Peter Street was situated on the central spine of the ridge with Lady Lane
and High Street to its south and north respectively. The Stage 2 settlement was enclosed on
the western side by earthen ramparts in the late eleventh century which were further
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