Our view of the Vikings has softened over the years, as we realise how vital our Viking heritage is to tourism. Dublinia is finding new ways to bring the city's early years back to life, writes BRIAN O'CONNELL
THERE’S SOMETHING not quite right about having fun getting to grips with how the Vikings conducted themselves on Irish soil. If you’re of a certain generation, then you learned that they were the most brutish, sadistic and bullying force to land on these islands until, well, you know who came along to replace them. Images in many history textbooks portrayed meek and defenceless scholarly monks going about their daily routines, only to be attacked by bloody and vicious Viking raiders. The Vikings had few redeeming features, our history told us, aside from their seafaring ability and funny-looking helmets. In short, our Viking heritage was a largely negative chapter in a much broader, albeit equally dark, history.
Yet something struck me last week as I toured the newly revamped Dublinia, Ireland’s only Viking and Medieval centre, with my 10-year-old son in tow. Vikings are no longer eyed with suspicion and harshness. Sometime in the past few decades, Vikings became box-office, and now Viking splash tours and horned-helmeted tourists follow their trail free of historical baggage. The current generation isn’t out to avenge Brian Boru – many, such as my young lad, see the Vikings simply as cute, furry creatures whose worst trait is that they probably smelled a bit.
Dublinia, then, is attempting, and in many ways succeeding, to reinvigorate the story of Viking Dublin for a 21st-century audience. Having undergone a €2 million investment, the exhibition has been brought into the digital age with a new interactive experience, realistic recreations, CSI-type presentation and hands-on activities for younger visitors. The technologically confident exhibit sweeps through the story of Dublin’s first Viking visitors and later medieval development, while also bringing visitors up to the present with representations of ongoing archaeological methods and site digs. There’s also a nod to our failings as a society to protect that heritage with information on the Wood Quay protests of the late 1970s.
Until time travel is perfected, Dublinia may be as close as a visitor can get to experiencing the sights, sounds and – in some cases – smells of Dublin through the ages. At the entrance, where a new reconstruction of a Viking ship, the Skuldelev 2, sets the tone, curator and education officer Sheila Dooley explains the aims of the centre.
“We are completely interactive and very multi-sensory. A lot of people think the Vikings were rapists and pillagers, but they actually did a lot for Dublin, so we are trying to represent that also.”
In one of the central rooms downstairs is the recreation of a Viking camp, which attempts to represent how the first Vikings in Ireland would have looked and lived. Kids can try on Viking helmets, while a corner scene recreates a Viking burial; our guide tells us to remember the scene for when we get to the top floor.
“We’re not static like some museums are forced to be,” says Dooley, “We’re lucky in that we can recreate this environment. It’s really important, though, that visitors come away from here remembering things.”
In a typical Viking house, visitors can stir the pot, touch the hanging guinea fowl or learn about the inhabitants from an audio-visual animation. There’s even a Viking loo on show, complete with moss toilet paper. When it was installed, it released authentic smells – although this feature has been disabled, as sometimes too much authenticity can be a bad thing. Skipping the medieval floor, which is interactive but less flashy, on the top floor of the centre the exhibition makes its most radical departure in telling the story of Viking and medieval Dublin. Here archaeology techniques and activities get a CSI-style makeover. We encounter a skip full of junk, reminding us that archaeology is essentially rubbish collected from the past. A soon-to-be-opened room on this floor will allow children to dig for bones and other artefacts in sand pits. And remember the burial scene we came across on the ground floor? Well here it is, being unearthed by a team of archaeologists, cleverly drawing together past and present and bringing the visitor experience full-circle.
SO, IS THE interactive, multi-sensory experience on offer at Dublinia the way forward for Irish museums? Pat Cooke, cultural policy lecturer in UCD, draws attention to the huge investment in Irish heritage and exhibition culture over the past 15 years, but warns against technological overkill in our museum sector.
“In some cases the resources over the past decade and a half were well used, in others they were less imaginative,” he says. “The Dublinia centre is an experience, it’s not object-based, it’s more of a technology-based operation And that’s fine, but we should remember that for national museums the fundamental core is about the safekeeping of things and objects which have qualities of truth and authenticity.”
Dublinia, it should be noted, does carry a small selection of original artefacts on loan from the National Museum, including Viking skulls and clothing, yet these seem strangely out of kilter with the rest of the experience. Perhaps that’s because the centre is more about experience and recreation than authentic objects and their display. It’s finding the balance between presentation and preservation that is the key challenge for Irish institutions attempting to retell the past in imaginative ways. And while they may attempt to keep apace and advance with their visitors, digital technology may always be that one step ahead.
“There is a kind of generational problem sometimes when older people attempt to perceive what is the latest technological whizz-bang,” says Cooke. “Often kids will have moved on from a lot of the type of interaction museums can choose. Kids are getting so much digital interaction nowadays you have to wonder do they just say, ‘so what?’ when they see digital museum-based exhibits.”
Cooke says we should not lose sight of the wow factor of original historical artefacts, which can contain within them stories and access points to major historical times and moments. By competing directly with modernity, some museums may find themselves facing an uphill battle he warns. “I’m not speaking directly about anywhere but, in general terms, how does a museum experience measure up to a 3-D Gameboy or Sony Wii? How does it measure up to the movie Avatar? That’s the danger for museums – trying to relay the past and keep up with the times. Many are left chasing technological rainbows.”
The revamped Dublinia and the new History Hunters exhibition will be launched by Minister for Tourism, Culture and Sport Mary Hanafin on May 12
A QUICK TOUR THROUGH DUBLINIA
First floorThe first floor takes you through reconstructions of Viking Dublin. We're told they arrived here in 841 and made a settlement, which grew and developed under their influence. Their legacy is still evident today in words such as 'egg' and 'boat' which originate from the Norse language. Visitors can sit in a Viking house and watch an animation on how living in the house was a little like being a student in the 1980s: smelly and confined. And, probably the most important discovery of all, we learned that moss is a great substitute for toilet paper.
Second floorOn the second floor, Dublin in the High Medieval Period shows how the city developed and grew from the earlier Viking settlement into a multi-national trading port with the arrival of the Anglo-Normans. A large-scale model of Dublin from the 16th century helps trace this development.
Medieval Dublin life could be a tough place to live mainly due to the lack of modern medicine and the natural occurrence of disease, sickness and plague. It makes post-boom Ireland seem almost bearable.
Top floorThe History Hunters exhibition shows how rubbish can tell us a lot about how people lived in the past. Visitors will learn how historians, scientists and archaeologists all work together to decipher what may have happened in the past and how they use original sources to guide them in their journey of discovery.
There is an opportunity here for visitors to examine soil and artifacts and take part in a dig. Even a builder’s hut and hardhat is included, items that are becoming truly historic in modern Ireland.
