The Irish Viking Age: A Discussion of Architecture, Settlement Patterns, and Identity

This paper discusses both the urban and the rural architecture of the Irish Viking Age. Looking firstly at the extremely well-preserved Hiberno-Norse urban settlements, especially the Type 1 houses, it finds that the true nature of this architecture is a hybrid of both Norse and Irish characteristics. It considers the nature of the proposed ‘Viking’ rural settlements in Ireland and concludes that some of these may be better considered as expressions of a Hiberno-Norse identity rather than evidence of a simplistic, and misleading, ‘Viking’ settlement pattern. Returning to the well-preserved urban archaeology, the author applies Access Analysis to a single building level from Fishamble St. in Dublin, concluding that these homes were carefully organized with controls over movement and access. Finally, the Access Analysis methodology is applied to the Hiberno-Norse rural settlements and finds that some of the buildings demonstrate similar patterns of movement to those observed at Fishamble St. This hints that there may have been closer relationships between these sites and perhaps may be the first signs of an observable ‘mental template’ regulating the Hiberno-Norse architecture of Ireland.