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Palaeo-environmental Study Area P21 Waterford Harbour, South Coast, Republic of Ireland PALAEO-ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY AREA P21 WATERFORD HARBOUR, SOUTH COAST, REPUBLIC OF IRELAND SOME OBSERVATIONS ON THE HISTORY OF HUMAN SETTLEMENT AND COASTAL CHANGE AT WATERFORD HARBOUR, COUNTY WEXFORD, EIRE The experience gained in the Shannon Estuary shows that the intertidal shoreline of Waterford Harbour is in need of archaeological survey. Present archaeological knowledge of the harbour is very largely confined to extant sites in the on-shore zone and this is conveyed in the distribution map compiled from the inventory of the Discovery Programme (Figure P21.1). Archaeological knowledge of the region has also been assisted by the Ballyclough Project of 1983 which investigated Neolithic settlement in the catchment of the harbour and its tributary rivers, the Barrow and Suir. A brief intertidal appraisal has been carried out by the Discovery Programme and submerged peats and land surfaces have been identified at the southern end of the harbour. It seems that the origins of maritime activity in the environs of Waterford Harbour can probably be attributed to the Neolithic period. On the adjacent uplands, in the vicinity of Tramore, a distinctive group of Neolithic chamber tombs has been identified (Daniel 1950 & 1958). The architecture of this select group of modest burial mounds conforms with the definition of ‘entrance graves’ and it seems to show very little affinity with any of the other megalithic tombs which abound in Ireland. There is, however, a notable similarity between the Tramore entrance graves and an isolated group of simple stone-built tombs found in the Isles of Scilly. This similarity has led to the suggestion of a maritime link between the two communities and the term Scilly-Tramore has been applied in recognition of this supposed connection (Daniel, ibid.). This hypothesis would certainly be compatible with an active Neolithic seafaring community thriving upon the resources of Waterford Harbour. The case for such seafaring activity has been further strengthened by the finding of an exotic faience bead in a secondary context in one of the Tramore entrance graves, at Harristown. The distribution of these primitive glass beads is highly restricted in Early Bronze Age Europe and it is not fully understood (Newton & Renfrew, 1970; McKerrell, 1973) but it may not be without significance that another example has been found in the Isle of Scilly, in the entrance grave at Knackyboy Cairn (O’ Neil, 1952). The documented history of maritime activity in Waterford Harbour can be traced to Viking settlement at the navigable head of the Suir river. This is a history which is held in common with kindred Viking maritime settlements at Dublin, Wicklow, Wexford, Cork and Limerick. The Vikings enforced their presence in a nebula of key trading locations reaching as far as Aquitaine to Ireland and Iceland to Novgorod. Where archaeological investigations have proceeded at Viking waterfront sites such as Dublin, York and Novgorod, the concealed cultural heritage has proved to be spectacularly rich in its artistic, epigraphic, and social content. This endows all of these sites with an outstanding rank in terms of European cultural importance. It is important to observe, however, that, with the notable exception of Novgorod, these investigations have been relatively small and opportune; their raisonne d’etre largely arising from a need for intervention or mitigation in the path of new building work and the need for development. A further feature of these investigations into Viking coastal settlement has been their virtual restriction to the terrestrial and intertidal zones. At Dublin and York, waterside settlement has been discovered deep below present ground level in locations where post-medieval urban expansion has carried the city on to reclaimed intertidal land. Discoveries of Viking ships the sub-tidal zone in such natural 1 Palaeo-environmental Study Area P21 Waterford Harbour, South Coast, Republic of Ireland harbours as Roskildefijorde in Denmark are a poignant reminder that Waterford Harbour and its kindred havens on the Irish coast carry a particularly high archaeological potential for the preservation of cultural remains of this period. All of these natural harbours deserve particular safeguards from such unsustainable processes as navigational dredging, trawling and trophy diving At the mouth of Waterford Harbour, the Hook peninsular and its neighbouring townlands has received recent attention in a desk-top study of its physical characteristics and its past and present human geography (Colfer, 1997). The peninsular is now heavily dedicated to arable land-use yet the regular ploughing of the soil does not seem to have resulted in the exposure or recognition of many archaeological sites other than those of the historic period which are upstanding and readily recognisable (Colfer, ibid, fig 6). At first glance this evidence seems to suggest a history of sparse human occupation, yet a study of the coastal place-names presents a very different picture. In this we see a rich array of specifically named localities concentrated along almost the entire coastline of the Hook Colfer, 1997, 273, fig. 20). A study of past maritime activity in and around the mouth of the natural harbour also reveals a lost pattern of human coastal subsistence. A successful fishing industry can be suspected in the mid 15th century when a stone tower house was built to defend the community of Slade which was sited at the head of a tiny sheltered inlet on the east side of the Hook peninsular. Similarly, another sheltered creek in neighbouring Bannow Bay was successfully colonised by a community of Cistercian monks who, from the early 13th century onwards, were responsible for the development of a successful creek-head abbey which they named ‘Tintern’ after their mother house in Monmouthshire. The Cistercians were noted for their interests and investments in maritime activity and the siting of this monastery in many ways reflects the Cistercian abbey which we have already noted on the Isle of Wight coast at Quarr. The Augustinian Order was prompt the grasp a similar opportunity when obtaining an appropriate coastal site for a priory in the neighbouring townland of Clonmines. Before the close of the 13th century maritime traffic in the mouth of the harbour had become sufficiently intense to warrant the building of a lighthouse at the tip of the Hook pensinsular. This was a tall and substantial stone building which was still standing at the close of the 17th century. A chart of Waterford Harbour prepared in AD 1591 by Francis Jobson shows a coastline well populated with medieval churches and this seems to reflect a prosperity which may owe much to the fish resources of the inlet as to the products of the adjacent farmland. In recent historic times men still rowed long distances in small boats to set lobster pots made of from willow saplings and to fish ‘marked’ spots where good fishing had been traditionally recognised in the environs of the harbour (Colfer, 1997, 272, fig. 19) . Mackerel and pollock were caught or trapped in the intertidal zone by those who did not have boats but were adept in the use of lures made of goat hair and goat skin. This was autumn practice which allowed the drying and salting of fish for winter consumption. At low tide, the sea shore was also a source of crabs, barnachs and piothans (limpets and periwinkles). In early summer the sea shore also yielded another type of harvest when seaweed known as woar was collected and carried to the fields where is was spread as a fertiliser (Colfer, ibid). In the late 17th century a short-lived saltworks was operated at Slade when the harbour was improved at a the time when communities on the Irish coast were grasping the opportunities offered by the Newfoundland trade. In the 18th century, Waterford was a major port with extensive maritime links ranging from Iberia to Newfoundland. The city drew its wealth from a tripartite hinterland which was based on the rich pastoral valleys of the rivers Barrow, Nore and Suir. These rivers fed a drowned inlet or ‘harbour’ which had become alive with shipping. Cargoes of many nationalities were wheeled across the city’s long stone waterfront while a train of tall arcaded mercantile buildings overlooked this scene. This history of growing prosperity claimed its origins in the 17th century when the traditional pattern of dairy-farming began to respond to increased demands for beef which might be exported through the city of Waterford. The growth of this export market had two particular impacts on the region. A 2 Palaeo-environmental Study Area P21 Waterford Harbour, South Coast, Republic of Ireland proliferation of bullock herds brought desolation to many traditional tillage-based village communities where land boundaries were redrawn to accommodate new entrpreneurial cattle estates. The prosperity of the ‘grazing baronies’ was also responsible for an intensification of urban population in the city of Waterford where competition for waterfrontage on the navigable river Suir began to grow. These urban pressures for flood plain development continued with the expansion of the city in the 19th and 20th centuries. Land reclamation was also carried out on some margins of the natural harbour, notably in the townland of Kilmokea where the east channel of the river Barrow was drained to secure the annexation of Great Island. Until a coastal change chronology is established for Waterford Harbour and its tidal tributaries its future response to rising sea level cannot be adequately assessed. Carter (1991-4) identifies this area as sensitive to sea-level rise, observing that the river estuary leading up to Waterford city appears to be vulnerable. At the Augustinian priory at Clonmines there seems reason to suspect that part of the medieval structure may have succumbed to submergence since the 13th century.

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