How old is waterford

A brief history of Waterford city. Irish Tricolour. Waterford city by night. Sign up for our newsletter Enter your email address below to get the latest news and exclusive content from The History Press delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up. Share this page. Waterford City Buy. Waterford Harbour Buy. The Little Book of Waterford Buy. Waterford Folk Tales Buy. Read more Irish history Show more books. The Little Book of Youghal Buy. The Little Book of Mayo Buy.

The Least of These Buy. Indeed, it has played a giant role in many of the signal events in Irish history. Now it is trying to use that history to encourage those crystal-gazing tourists to stay a little longer.

They are next to one another in the old district known as the Viking Triangle , across from the Waterford Crystal factory. As I walked to each museum over a couple of days, I was able to trace the history of Waterford from its founding by the Vikings right up to the present.

I was fascinated thinking about the Viking trade route that brought to Ireland a more than 1,year-old coin that had been minted in what is now Iraq. And it was remarkable to stand on the site of the 12th century wedding that cemented the English hold over the Irish. It is now fifth. Then, in , the famed crystal factory, which had employed thousands of highly paid skilled craftsmen, shipped most of its work overseas, leaving a gleaming new facility staffed by a handful of workers creating sporting trophies and other signature pieces.

Much of the downtown area is shabby and reminiscent of a small Rust Belt city in the American Midwest, albeit one laced with centuries-old stone walls. That stone wall I leaned against while slurping oysters, drinking ale and listening to music at the Reg restaurant is a fragment of one built by the Vikings at the turn of the first millennium.

To get to the Tesco supermarket, where I bought ingredients for stews and soups to freeze and thus tide over the prospective parents, I passed a gate built by Anglo-Normans in the 12th or 13th century.

The current stone structure was built in the 12th century, replacing the original wooden one from The exhibits include an intricate silver, gold foil and amethyst-colored glass kite brooch from the 12th century and, most impressive to me, an 8th century Islamic coin that had been minted in Wasit, a town near present-day Baghdad.

I found myself wishing I had brought a couple of pre-teens with me when I stopped at the King of the Vikings virtual-reality adventure. Even a grandfather-in-waiting like me found the VR effects cool.

Next door is the Medieval Museum , which opened in In the 12th century, when Ireland was a battlefield for competing clans, one tribal leader enlisted the military help of Englishman Richard de Clare , known as Strongbow. The grand Georgian Christ Church Cathedral , directly behind the museum, stands on the site of the church where the wedding took place. In , when the old Gothic cathedral was demolished to build the current version, workmen found a chest that had been buried under the chapel floor.

They had been created in the 15th century from spun-gold Florentine cloth and embroidered in Bruges, Belgium. The vestments were buried in to keep them out of the hands of the Protestant Oliver Cromwell, who was besieging the city.

Put the pedal to the metal in Ireland and plan your perfect cycling adventure. Dublin IS music. Make your way to the Earagail Arts Festival for a 18 days of music, theater, visual arts, film, literature and carnival fun! Explore Ireland's competitive spirit with this sports quiz!

Or head to Shannon and take the scenic route cross-country. Coming by ferry? Rosslare and Cork are your closest ports. But Dublin is a pretty easy distance.

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