The female prisoners held on the third floor kept warm and stayed cheerful by dancing jigs and reels.To this day, the tower is still a bit drafty despite being equipped with electric lights and heating, and its winding stairs have been resurfaced but not redesigned for the modern human.
Wexford longphort update#
During its life as a gaol, it was damned for its discomfort the government didn’t see fit to update damp, drafty medieval construction for the benefit of criminals. In its day, it served not only as a watchtower but also as a royal mint and a prison. The tower itself has as much of a story as the artifacts within. Since the Vikings are not noted for their artistic ability, the collection consisted primarily of pins, arrowheads, swords, and some pottery shards. On to the Viking Museum in Reginald’s tower. I was really excited to find him here in Waterford. It was sprinkling a bit when I left the Medieval Museum, so my second stop was at the Chocolate Cafe for a bowl of soup and some tea. Don’t get too excited, though the city fell to his deputy in the same year. The man besieged Waterford fruitlessly and was eventually forced to withdraw in 1649. For instance, it was really the only city in Ireland to successfully resist Oliver Cromwell. Second, Waterford has a long record of rebellious attitude. Aesthetically pleasing? On the vomitous end of the spectrum. For some reason, the museum felt it necessary to display the wax heads of three rebels on pikes. I don’t want to bore you with descriptions of museum interiors, so I will cut it off with two notes.
The museum was complete with city layouts through the ages, wax figures modeling medieval garb (and what a shock it gave me to turn around and find myself face-to-face with a king!), charter books and royal decrees printed on vellum, swords, medieval art, bishops’ raiments worked in cloth-of-gold…The list goes on.
This was in the dinery.Ĭhrist Church and then led to the third floor. The tour started in the underground dinery (and winery) intended for monks in the neighboringīecause everyone needs a midden heap.
Since Reginald’s Tower was closed for the lunch by the time I schlepped into town, I headed over to the Medieval Museum instead. One such example of Viking construction is Reginald’s Tower, which sits right at a busy intersection and has become a Viking museum. Not only that, it is one of the few cities in which traces of the Vikings are present, obvious, and in side-by-side existence with Middle Ages architecture. While most of the cities around here have remnants of some sort of medieval wall and, of course, old churches, Waterford’s wall is predominantly intact and includes some watchtowers perched right beside the main road. It is the oldest town in Ireland and was founded by the Vikings in the 9th century, though some will claim that it was founded in the 2nd century or in prehistoric times. I walked the 5.6 kilometres back to the city centre, and along the way I had the chance to truly appreciate Waterford’s history. Saturday was far more exciting in the tourism department.
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