Your landmark at the beginning of this walk is Christ Church Cathedral, which stands on the north side of Christ Church Place. From here, turn right, follow the pavement round on to St Michael’s Hill, through the arch and cross the road to enter Dublinia. Based on archaeological excavations along the Liffey at Wood Quay, this exhibition brings Viking Dublin to life. More Viking relics are on show at the National Museum, which we’ll visit later on this walk. 

Retrace your steps to the north side of Christ Church Place and the entrance to the cathedral. Dublin’s oldest building, with its blend of Romanesque and Gothic architecture, stands on the site of a wooden cathedral erected by Sidric, the Viking ruler of Dublin, in 1038. Also called Sigtrygg or Sedriug, and nicknamed ‘Silkbeard’, Sidric married the daughter of the Irish King Brian Boru, who in the early years of the second millennium had almost succeeded in uniting Ireland under his sway. Brian, in turn, married Sidric’s widowed mother, making him Sidric’s stepfather as well as his father-in-law. This didn’t stop Sidric allying with Mael Morda, King of Leinster, against Brian in 1014. Sidric, Mael Morda and their allies met Brian’s army at Clontarf, just north of Dublin. In the confused battle that followed, almost all the leaders were killed, including Brian, but Sidric watched from a distance and survived. Clontarf has gone down in history as a great Irish victory over the Vikings, but in fact Vikings fought on both sides, and canny Sidric lived on to rule Dublin until his death 28 years later. 

Cross to the south side of Christ Church Place, and where it joins Werburgh Street and Castle Street walk straight ahead on Castle Street. At the end of this street, where it meets Cork Hill, turn right to enter Dublin Castle. Located where a smaller river, the Poddle, flowed into the Liffey to form a handy anchorage, this was a natural place for the Vikings to build a stronghold. Remnants of this early Viking fortress can be seen in the Undercroft, below the much more substantial castle begun in 1205 and added to over centuries of English rule. Ironically, Strongbow’s Anglo-Normans, whose arrival on the scene spelt the end of Viking Ireland, were themselves the descendants of Danish Vikings who had sailed south to settle in Normandy. It is still not certain what triggered the sudden eruption of Scandinavian seafarers from the fjords of Denmark and Norway around the 8th century AD. Population pressure and climate change are possible factors. What is certain is that the Viking presence plugged Ireland into a wide-ranging Norse-Celtic culture that ultimately stretched all the way to the Scottish Hebrides, Orkney, Shetland, and Iceland as well as Scandinavia. Some Vikings even got as far as Constantinople to serve in the Varangir Guard as bodyguards of the Byzantine Emperor. 

Leaving the castle on Cork Hill, turn right on to the south side of Dame Street, cross over Great George’s Street and Trinity Street, and just after Dame Street merges into College Green, turn right into Church Lane, which leads into Suffolk Street. A conspicuous pub, O’Neill’s, is on the left at No. 121, opposite the tourist information office. There is at least some evidence that in Dublin’s Viking heyday, this was the site of the Thingmount, where the Viking Parliament, or Thing, came together to elect rulers, try criminals, decide titles to land or resolve a blood feud. Some decisions were put to a mass vote (women and slaves, or thralls, didn’t get a voice), others were decided by a panel of respected judges. The Vikings are often portrayed as barbarians, but they had a high respect for their own version of law, justice and democracy. The Thingmount was an artificial earthen mound 40ft (12m) high and 240ft (73m) round. Sadly, it was levelled in 1682, when its earth and stones were used to raise the level of flood-prone Nassau Street nearby. A handful of weapons and other finds discovered are in the National Museum, but much more must have been lost.

With the pub on your left, go to the end of Suffolk Street, continue along Nassau Street, passing Grafton Street, Dawson Street, South Frederick Street on the right, and turn right into Kildare Street. Take the left-hand side, pass the National Library and Leinster House, to enter the wrought-iron gates of the National Museum of Ireland – Archaeology and History. The National Museum’s archaeology collection contains a treasury of Viking and Norse-Irish art, and if further proof were to be needed of the civilizing mission of the Vikings in Ireland, here it is. Not only Dublin, but virtually every Irish seaport city has Viking roots (the ancient Irish were neither great town-builders nor keen seafarers). The museum’s Viking Ireland collection spans the period from the earliest Viking contacts with the Irish, beginning around AD800, up to the coming of the Anglo-Normans in the mid-12th century. There are grave goods from Viking funerary sites, for, happily for present-day archaeologists, the Vikings hoped to take wealth and weapons with them into the afterlife. Discoveries from settlements all over Ireland show a gentler side of their life as farmers and homesteaders, and the magnificent silver ornaments show a culture with a sophisticated sense of style and great metalworking skill. The finds from the Dublin digs carried out between 1962 and 1981 comprise Europe’s finest collection of discoveries from an early medieval town, and the final section, with its outstanding church silver from the 11th and 12th centuries, shows the last flowering of the unique Celtic-Scandinavian culture.