THE WOODSTOWN archaeological site in Co Waterford, now considered “one of the most important early Viking Age trading centres yet discovered in Ireland”, has yet to be placed on the statutory record of national monuments – five years after it was found.
In line with a recommendation in the final report of a working group set up to consider its future preservation, Minister for the Environment John Gormley is expected to make an order putting it on the Record of Monuments and Places under the National Monuments Acts.
The Woodstown working group, which includes senior archaeologists from the National Monuments Service and the National Museum, said this would give the site on the southern bank of the river Suir, southwest of Waterford city, a “basic level of protection”.
However, the group’s final report to the Minister does not recommend a full-scale archaeological excavation of the site in the short to medium term, suggesting this would cost at least €10 million and that there were not enough archaeologists available to do it.
The Woodstown site was unearthed in 2003 in archaeological investigations along the proposed route of the N25 Waterford bypass. Because of its national and international importance, the National Roads Authority agreed to re-route the bypass further east.
There had been some suggestion that the site might extend further onto lands now proposed for the re-routing of the bypass, but a report prepared by Archaeological Consultancy Services for the working group concluded that it was limited to the area already discovered.
“The working group is of the view based on all available information [including a geophysical survey by the landowner, Gerard Halley] that the major and central part of the site appears to be within two contiguous D-shaped enclosures . . . defined by concentric ditches.”
It had been speculated that the site was a longphort, or ship stockade, but based on the evidence of some 5,000 Viking artefacts found there, the group concluded that Woodstown was also a major trading site in the late 9th century, occupied largely by Scandinavians.
The range of artefacts, including silver coins, suggested that they were wealthy participants in commercial activities and at least some of them were of high status, “as evidenced by the presence of one of the best-furnished Viking graves ever discovered in Ireland”.
There was “considerable on-site manufacturing activity, including iron, copper alloy, silver, glass and perhaps lead-working, woodworking, ship repair and textile production”. This made it “one of the most productive unwaterlogged sites of early medieval date” found here.
“Woodstown is the only site of this type in Ireland that has undergone archaeological excavation and the only one anywhere in Ireland or Britain to have produced evidence from occupation levels.
“It must be considered exceptional . . . ,” the group’s final report says. “The extraordinary assemblage of finds promises new insights into economic activity in this period and potentially into the origins of urban settlement in Ireland,” it suggests.
It recommends that all the finds should be displayed at the Waterford Museum of Treasures.
As for protecting the site itself, which is owned in its entirety by Mr Halley, the report says that, with his agreement, it could be acquired by the State or, failing that, taken into the guardianship of either the relevant local authority or the Minister for the Environment.
In the short to medium term, the working group says there “should not be any specific on-site heritage-related development”, such as a visitor centre or other public facilities, apart from the provision of viewing points where passers-by could see archaeologists at work.