“Mind-blowing” Viking discovery made in Ireland.

Irish Central has more on the pristine site in a little village in County Louth that used to be a Viking winter base:

Geophysical tests funded by Dundalk’s County Museum have allowed scientists to make the big breakthrough.

They have now confirmed that the Linn Duchaill site, beside the river Glyde and south of Dundalk Bay, was where the Vikings brought their long ships or longphorts to be repaired.

It was also the base for inland raids as far as Longford and north to Armagh.

Although eventually abandoned as a port due to poor tides and a shallow bay, Linn Duachaill was also a large trading town as the Vikings exported Irish slaves and looted goods.

Experts have been blown away by the find on farmland in the small village.

Louth County Museum curator Brian Walsh told the Irish Examiner: “This site is mind-blowing. It is untouched, there is no motorway going through it and it is basically virgin territory. It has been husbanded and farmed for the last few hundred years and is unspoilt.

“It is one of the most important sites of its kind in the world, not just Europe.”

[via]