Wood Quay, Dublin and Discovering My Viking Heritage

On a Saturday afternoon in September 1978, myself, still a young school boy, took part in my first ever involvement with activism in the form of a protest march comprised of tens of thousands of ordinary Irish people from all walks of life with one singular aim; to stop Dublin city bureaucrats from building an edifice their own importance (and impotence) upon a recently uncovered Viking city at Wood Quay on the bank of the river Liffey.

Looking back now, I honestly had no idea why I was even at the march, or what forced me to nervously walk - with thousands of strangers around me - so as to defend a muddy hole in the ground filled with excited college students holding a trowel in one hand, and an unearthed coin in the other? Alongside me in the march to save Wood Quay were housewives with their children in hand, bearded, tweed-encrusted academics and every other type of person one could possible imagine in between. Pipe smoke was as heavy in the air that day as songs and chants. This was a time when Irish college professors still mingled with unemployed brick layers and respected their combined passion to do the right thing.

Especially noteworthy on the day, was the much higher representation of women at these marches than men. Why? Did they subconsciously feel that a return to being an Irish woman living as Vikings offered them more freedom and respect that their present state - as it was then in the late 1970's - under the yoke of Irish-Catholic "morality" which denied them access to well, just about everything at the time? 

All I knew at the time was that I had an instinctual compulsion to support, and be a part of this campaign to save a Viking archaeological site. I had even wrote a three chord protest song about Wood Quay on my Woolworth's guitar entitled 'You Can Beat City Hall' thinking it might save our Viking ancestor's cultural footprint on the banks of the Liffey from being entombed for another thousand or more years beneath bureaucracy's cold, dead and brutalistic architecture.

That Saturday afternoon protest march in September 1978 was the culmination of a growing anger which first came into manifestation in 1974 when large scale excavations of the site began to reveal what was potentially the largest Viking city anywhere in the world. As the nature and immense importance of the Wood Quay archaeological digs began to come to light, so too did the determination of the Dublin City bureaucrats to build their new civic offices on the location. Something momentous was beginning to happened in the gap between this schism; as more and more Viking artefacts and buildings were uncovered, the ordinary Dubliner looking at the digs, went from casual interest and fascination, to literally having a dormant part of their own heritage being reactivated.

Along with the thousands of everyday, domestic items used by the Vikings of Wood Quay, large numbers of weapons and artwork, even entire urban landscapes, workshops, stores and markets emerged from the mud with each draw of the archaeologist's trowel. More significantly; it was not just swords and deer anther hair combs which were being excavated from the past, but the lives of people just like myself and many other Dubliners. 

Old archetypes were also emerging from the submerged consciousness. Along with the material, social and cultural resurrections of Wood Quay, our old gods Odin, Thor and Freya were also stepping out of the darkness and back into the light. On the bus home after the protest, I should have checked to see if two ravens were perched upon the trees in the courtyard of the Papal Nuncio's residence in Drumcondra. Even if I now regret not looking to see if Huginn and Muninn - the two information gathering ravens perched upon the shoulders of the god Odin - were present at the time, I would not be surprised if they had have been squaking their findings back to Odin in Valhalla.

On an archetypical, and perhaps even genetic memory level, what took place with the Wood Quay preservation movement between 1974 and 1979 was an almost metaphysical re-inaction of the Battle of Clontarf which took place on the 23 of April 1014 when Brian Boru, the King of Munster engaged with the Norwegian Hiberno-Vikings of Dublin for possession of the city. Perhaps this is why I, and tens of thousands of other Dubliners felt compelled to fight Dublin City bureaucrats for the ownership of Wood Quay; we were sub-consciously, and unknowingly honouring our Viking ancestors. On that archetypal battlefield, it was a re-match of sorts.

The campaign to save Wood Quay was not only emotional and passionate, but surprisingly complex and even sophisticated. Near riotous council meetings on the fate of the Wood Quay site were complimented with public relations campaigns, legal challenges and what seemed like weekly protests in Dublin city centre focussed upon the Wood Quay dig like a growing army on the march. At one point, the site was even held hostage by a motley group comprising of poets, cultural activists and incredibly enough, even the Lord Mayor of Dublin himself, who sided with the Vikings against the bureaucrats.

Tragically the series of protests to save Wood Quay from being buried alive under a modern office building, came to naught and the architecturally horrific monoliths of the new Civic Offices for Dublin Corporation were built on one of the most significant Viking settlements ever unearthed. Our ancestors had been defeated once again. 

The final protest was one late night in 1979 when thousands of Dubliners descended on the construction site as the building machines were moving in, and together in unison, they all sang Molly Malone as a lamentation for their Viking ancestors. However, that five years of the sun shining upon the old Viking city of Wood Quay had forever reawakened the soul and culture of our Dublin Viking ancestry and this flame was never going to be extinguished.

The same effect was repeated the following year in York, England when another major Viking site was unearthed during the construction of a shopping centre. This together with the growing number of major Viking archaeological sites; from not only Scandinavia, England, Scotland, and other parts of Ireland, but also Iceland, Greenland, Russia and even Canada had resulted in more people asking question about their Viking past from their Christian institutions. 

It was, and remains akin to a child asking an abusive and domineering father "why mother left us"? The only answer to that question one of guilt and lies.

Badb and The Valkyries - the War Goddesses of the North and West

'The Valkyries and the Morrígna at the Battle of Clontarf'

Thomas Sheridan - Mixed Media

"The traditional term "war-goddesses" is retained here as the name of a class of beings appearing in Irish literature whose nature the following remarks will perhaps help to clarify. "War-witches" or "war-demons" would be equally appropriate names, but there can be no objection to the use of the traditional term as long as it is understood that nothing regarding the nature of the beings so named is implied."

- C. Lottner, The Ancient Irish Goddesses of War 

In northern European mythological traditions, the idea of the Goddess of War was a powerful symbolism, acting somewhat as the supernatural counter-version of the earthly natural mother. The idea held sway that just as a mother was present at the time of birth, an archetypal, supernatural 'death mother' or non-earthly soul-harvesting female entity, would ease the passing of men - who had generally fallen in battle - into the next life. 

Men dying on battlefields have long been known to scream out the word 'mother' while in the final death throes, and perhaps this is how the mythology came to be. In a modern context, this is rather disturbingly portrayed in the opening scene of the movie Saving Private Ryan. So it is not at all surprising that both Irish and Norse mythology share a very similar connection to female deities as either goddesses of death, and/or collectors of the slain: the Badb (pronounced 'baeiv') of the Irish mythological pantheon and the Valkyries of Nordic tradition. In all cases where this supernatural archetype is present, prophecy generally plays an important, if not pivotal, element in the events as they unfold.

In Irish tradition, the Badb literally meaning "crow" or "raven", and is a zoomorphic war goddess who assumes the earthly form of the "battle crow" and her presence forms part of the Morrígna along with her sisters, Macha and the Morrígan. Similar to the Valkyries of the Norse pantheon of war goddesses, the Morrígna can appear alone or in groups of usually three women on the eve of, during or following a great battle, and are often the travelling fateful companions of 'familiars' of heroic warriors. 

'The Morrigan'

Thomas Sheridan - Mixed Media

Within the Anglo Saxon narrative, a raven, hovering in anticipation over an army, is described as Wcelceasiga, literally translating as "the slain-choosing one", and is almost identical to the Germanic/Norse Valkyrie, demonstrating just how deep rooted this idea was within northern European cultures. These female 'war-witches/demons' are sometimes literally portrayed as goddesses, other times as human female witches with terrifying superhuman powers of magic and prophecy. In all cases, these females - be they supernatural beings or earthly witches - were the choosers of the slain, and very often connected with the notion of prophetic fatalities and doom. 

This archetype was so powerful among the Irish and the Vikings in particular, that one can only imagine the intensity of the psychic and supernatural mind storm which took place on the eve of the Battle of Clontarf near Dublin on 23 April 1014, when a complex set of alliances formed of Irish and Norse warriors on both sides brought their archetypes of both the Badb and The Valkyries - into their combined and collective consciousnesses - as one enormous battle which took place not only on the battlefield itself, but also within the battlefield of each and every psyche present that day. 

According to Viking accounts of the Battle of Clontarf, a group of Valkyries were sighted weaving the fate of the leaders as both harbingers of fate and prophecy, charging many on the battlefield with a terrifying weakness that eventually overcomes the warriors on both sides. Such psychic attacks upon the warriors would have real after-life consequences, as cowardice would prevent them from being elevated towards becoming post-mortal, supernatural beings themselves. Such as the Berserkers - who would have been present on the day at Clontarf - being carried up by the Valkyrie to Odin's long hall at Valhalla in order to transmigrate into the state of Einherjar so they may prepare to fight alongside Odin and Thor during the cataclysmic end-time of Ragnarök.  Being shape-shifters, the Norse Valkyrie were also feared as arriving in the guise of attractive rural maidens who bring wine or mead to the heroes, causing them to under perform in battle.

However, this idea appears to be a later incorporation of Germanic folklore imported into Scandinavia as witch-tricksters, who were also associated with being shape-shifting birds of prey. The purpose being to make the  warriors psychologically weak so the corvids might dine more easily upon their flesh later following the battle. 'Softening them up' so to speak. Again, their powers of prophecy were looked upon with dread and loathing by warriors on the eve of battle.

In the Irish mythological epic the Táin Bó Cúailnge  or "the driving-off of cows of Cooley", which tells of the war against Ulster by the forces of Connacht under Queen Meadhbh (pronounced 'maeve')  and her husband Ailill against the teenage Ulster warrior Cú Chulainn. Again, we can see how the corvids (in this case, crows) represent a powerful archetype on the Irish battlefield as they did on the Viking battlefield. The awesome potential of the Morrígna within the Irish ancient psyche being identical to that of the Valkyries within the minds of the Viking warriors. Within the Táin, the Morrígna foretells of many deaths. Significantly, ravens are also mentioned in the text as Badb - this time in the context of the ravens - being  an actual combatant during the fighting. 

In the Ulster Cycle version of the Táin Bó Cúailnge, Cú Chulainn, on the way to battle, he meets the Morrígan, who has shape-shifted into an old hag. To his dismay, Cú Chulainn realises she is polishing his own armour while removing the blood from it by dousing it into a river. The river representing the 'crossing over' and consequently, an omen of his own death in the upcoming battle. Later on, as Cú Chulainn is dying - having been mortally wounded by Lugaid's magical spear - he straps himself upright to a standing stone, using his own entrails as ropes so he can die on his feet. At the moment of his passing, a lone crow lands upon his right shoulder, signifying the arrival of the Badb and fulfilling of the Morrígna's prophecy.