IRELAND - Protesters On Warpath Over Viking Site

Protesters on warpath over Viking site

Independent.ie
By Fergus Black
Wednesday December 31 2008

IT was described in one official document as the medieval equivalent of a modern municipal dump.

But controversial plans to build civic offices on the site of Dublin's original Viking settlement at Wood Quay caused considerable outrage in 1978.

It led to thousands of people joining Fr FX Martin and the 'Friends of Medieval Dublin' in a march through the city demanding that the site be excavated and saved.

Economist TK Whitaker warned Taoiseach Jack Lynch that destroying the site would do irreparable harm to the Government's and Ireland's reputation.

Even the Danish National Museum added its voice to the clamour, expressing its "great sorrow" at being told of the decision to demolish the archaeological site at Wood Quay. One letter writer told Taoiseach Jack Lynch that he surely wouldn't want to be mentioned in the same breath as Cromwell and "other despoilers" of our national monuments.

As public opposition grew, a memorandum was drawn up on the Wood Quay issue for the Department of Finance in the autumn of 1978. The document, contained in a Taoiseach's Department file, said archaeological investigations of the site would continue up to October 9 that year and that work on the building of a civic office would press ahead if no new archaeological find of great importance was made by then.

It also pointed out that the total excavation of the site being sought by campaigners would in itself involve destruction of most of the site.

"Preservation of the site would involve an unjustifiably high level of public expenditure, perhaps as high as IR£5m in compensation to Dublin Corporation alone," it said.

- Fergus Black