Viking Burials in Ireland

Irish history is colored with Viking raids, settlement, and invasion. Vikings were first spotted off the Irish coast as early as 792 C.E. It comes to no surprise that the Irish landscape is dotted with Viking remains including Irish-Viking burials inside or outside their settlements and villages. Dublin always has them popping up now and then. There is the infamous Male Viking Burial at Larne. The Museum of Archaeology Ireland has the best collection of artifacts found of Ireland’s Viking era, including the burial history. The first recorded raids by the Vikings onto Ireland took place around 795 C.E. (common era, AD) with raids in the west and northern coasts of Eire. From there the Vikings traveled up the rivers building bases and settlements in 840 C.E. They targeted Christianity and their monasteries for the gold, silver, and slaves.

Hordes of burial goods were found within the 9th century Pagan Viking Burials at Islandbridge and Kilmainham Dublin especially long swords superior to Irish swords, purses, tongs, weights, scales, oval brooches, whalebone ironing board, spindle whorls, bronze needle case, and hammers telling tales of other Viking professions such as artisans, merchants, and blacksmiths settling in the village. By the 10th-12th century, the Vikings effectively changed the Irish landscape which was exquisitely rural at the time. Viking settlements gave birth to the roots of Ireland’s current larger cities such as Cork, Dublin, Waterford, and Limerick whose roots go to the Vikings. They brought in trade markets with western Asia, the Byzantine and Muslim markets around the region bringing in great wealth and treasures. Vikings primarily built their houses of wattle and daub, posts with willow wattle weave daubed with mud or dung. They built ships, furniture, toys, board games, iron tools, cups, barrels, bowls, hasps, locks, hinges, keys, swords, and weapons. They were master craftsmen and women. They began to convert to Christianity by the 10th century with Irish and Viking art merging to a point one couldn’t tell the difference between the styles. By 11th-12th century the artistic styles became a fusion and labelled Hiberno-Norse culture. Many of these artifacts were buried with the dead. Viking burials in the region of Dublin were extraordinary especially with burial effects, many of which is being cataloged and logged by the Museum of Archaeology Ireland published in a 800 page tome documented these goods. One of the most famous Viking burials in Dublin is that of a 9th century skeleton buried with a spearhead and sword found near the War Memorial Park in Islandbridge during a 1934 excavation. Earlier discoveries were not well recorded, but with this burial a change in Irish Archaeology of Vikings took place. While not every Viking was buried with burial goods, a high number of aristocratic or militaristic burials have been recorded including at least 59 graves in the Kilmainha-Islandbridge region increasing in numbers to this very day. These remains help document and validate the purported numbers of Vikings coming to Dublin. In the Dublin region, they buried their dead on both sides of the Liffey River and along the Poddle. Shallow graves and military goods were common place around Dublin for Viking warriors with swords, rings, beads, daggers, shields, spears, and other weapons for use in the afterlife. At the Golden Lane site west of Dublin were two Viking burials excavated in 2005 just outside an early medieval cemetery next to the church of St. Michael le Pole – that of an elderly female and the other a young 20-30 year old male – the female buried with a decorated bone buckle and the male with a knife, spear-head, belt buckle, and 2 lead weights both dating to around 688-870 CE (radiocarbon dating) similar to those found on Ship Street and Georges street Dublin that were accompanied by a shield boss, spear-head, Bronze Age halberd, and other grave goods relating to warrior activity. Viking burial mounds as very elaborate cist burials began to appear as well surviving into the 17th century after which point were demolished. The sheer number of burials with weapons found in Ireland account for nearly half of those found in the British Isles.

Extensive Viking burials are beneath Dublin streets. A 15+ year long study on Viking remains in Dublin is nearing completion and publication. Cataloguing began in 1999 will result in an 800+ page tome called “Viking Graves and Grave Goods in Ireland”. The largest grave complex is still the Kilmainham-Islandbridge Viking graves with 59+ findings as the largest found in Western Europe (except Scandinavia). Artifacts dating from AD 841 and AD 902 significantly mark Dublin’s importance in the Viking realm although not every Viking grave had an artifact.