Viking Dublin: The Wood Quay Excavations

The Wood Quay-Fishamble Street archaeological excavations were a constant media story throughout the 1970s and '80s when the threat of official destruction brought thousands of protesters onto the streets of Dublin. The public protests forced the most extensive urban excavations ever undertaken in Europe that yielded more unprecedented data about town layout in Dublin 1000 years ago than about any other European Viking town of the time. Dozens of often near intact building foundations, fences, yards, pathways and quaysides were unearthed in the course of the campaign. Patrick Wallace, the chief archaeologist of the excavations, provides a detailed examination of the implications of these discoveries for Viking-Age and Anglo-Norman Dublin by placing them in their national and international contexts.