The Steine

Nestled in between Pearse and Townsend Street on a small Plaza adjacent the Pearse street Garda station there is a rather tall Longstone. Looks Really cool right. Unfortunately, it aint no antiquity, this is a replica of a Viking Longstone which once stood at this location. Yes, Dublin started out long before it became the capitol city, as an early Viking settlement. Dubh Linn (Dark Pool) as it was known was the perfect spot for the Viking longboats to stop off. From here they could launch coastal raids or even travel up stream. Back then, the layout looked a lot different than it does today. Much of Dublin is actually reclaimed land, either from the sea or the flood plains of the river Liffey.

The original Longstone was raised by the Vikings back in the 10^th or 11^th century at a spot where their ships would have moored. It was mentioned Petty’s Down Survey of the Half Barony of Rathdown, back in 1655, in fact it was mentioned in a few different resources during the 1600’s What we do know is that by 1750 it was gone.

The current stone was sculpted by a Limerick artist Cliodhna Cussen in 1986. The faces are said to represent Ivar the Boneless! Not so sure about that, there was a Danish Ivar said to have been pals with the then Danish king of Dublin Olaf the White, but with all the popularity of Vikings and the Lothbrook connections it can be hard to tell fact from fiction with this kind of thing. So was the stone a landmark or did it serve as something else. Was it marking the resting place of Ivar the Boneless? Were did the original stone disappear to? The list of questions are endless. But its still a nice site to see in the middle of a bustling city, not too far from Trinity College. Well worth a visit