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Friday, September 10, 2004
Public support sought to save Viking site
THE city’s long awaited bypass should not be constructed at the expense of the internationally significant archaeological site recently discovered at Woodstown on the outskirts of the city.
That’s the claim of the Socialist Workers Party who are hosting a public meeting in the Granville Hotel, on September 16 at which a campaign will be launched to save the Viking Site. Speakers at the meeting which gets underway at 8 p.m. includethe well known local historian and writer, Jack O’Neill, and a Dublin based archaeologist, Paula Geragthy. The Woodstown Viking Site, discovered during preparations for the Waterford bypass has been described as the most significant new find in Viking studies in perhaps a century, by Professor Donnchadh O’Corrain, medieval historian at UCC, and “Ireland’s equivalent of Pompeii” by archaeologist John Maas.
Minister for the Environment, Martin Cullen, is currently awaiting a full report from the National Roads Authority, the National Museum and his own department before making a decision on whether or not to order a full excavation of the site. The Socialist Workers fear that Minister Cullen will only order a “rescue” excavation, a partial digging which will fail to unearth the full wonders of Woodstown.
Although the excavation has now halted because the license to carry out work has expired, already over 3,000 artefacts have been successfully excavated. It is believed the original town from the early to mid ninth century, could have been home to up to 4,000 inhabitants. The town remains virtually intact with streets and dwellings believed to be just underneath the soil surface. Aerial photographs and evidence uncovered have convinced archaeologists that up to 120 Viking ships once occupied the town, which is located on the banks of the river Suir. The site began as a longport and was a base for shipbuilding. No other longport discovery in Europe comes close to matching the scale and significance of the Woodstown find.
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