Enjoying Waterford
by Nuala Murphy--
“That’s where we sat on Strongbow and Aoife yesterday”. My friend Anne made this unusual comment, as she pointed out the two bronze chairs shaped to resemble the Anglo-Norman knight and Aoife of Leinster, in the lovely Bishop’s Palace Garden.
It was in 2017, on the second day of an enjoyable visit to Waterford, where, as well as sharing the tastiest ever fish and chips overlooking the strand in Tramore, Anne brought me to visit
two of the trio of museums which make up the city’s Museum of Treasures in the Viking
Triangle.
The Viking Triangle is the area of Waterford which was first settled by the Vikings when they founded Ireland’s oldest city in the 10th century. Indeed, Reginald’s tower which stands there is believed to bear a name derived from Old Norse, as is the city itself.
The first museum we visited was the Medieval Museum. Our tour-guide mentioned the
Vikings early on in his tour. He claimed that popular beliefs about plundering pillagers
wearing horned helmets are not entirely accurate, and then proceeded to engage and
entertain his 21st century audience with the suggestion that maybe Irish-Viking
relationships were formed over a series of coffee mornings! The truth, I suspect, lies
somewhere in the middle.
The influence of the French down through the years was also apparent. For the first time
ever in this museum, I heard about blaa- the doughy bread buns with a dusting of flour
which are mostly eaten for breakfast. Waterford Blaa has been awarded Protected
Geographic Indication status (PGI) by the European Commission, along with such items as
Parma ham and Champagne. The blaa was brought by French Huguenots to the city;
some believe that the name comes from the French for white bread ‘pain blanc’.
The Anglo-Normans, and the role that they played in the history of Waterford, were of
course in evidence in the Medieval Museum. In 1170, the Normans under Strongbow
(Richard de Clare) took the city; in 1171 Strongbow married Aoife MacMurrough,
daughter of the King of Leinster. Waterford subsequently became a royal city.
Among the priceless items on view in the museum was the four-metre long Great Charter
Roll of 1373. How fascinating it was to look at this 14th century document, with its small, neat handwriting in Latin and its well preserved illustrations!
Among the interesting things which we saw in The Bishop’s Palace (the second museum
which we visited in The Museum of Treasures) was a bust of Arthur Balfour who was
appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1887. He was the nephew of Conservative British
Prime Minister Robert “Bob” Cecil, and it’s thought that the phrase ‘Bob’s your uncle’
may have its origins in the suggestions of nepotism that accompanied this appointment.
Interestingly, another phrase in common usage ‘By hook or by crook’ is thought by some
to have come from Oliver Cromwell’s promise, centuries earlier, that he would take Waterford either by Hook Head on one side of the Waterford Estuary, or by Crook, on the other side.
The Bishop’s Palace also houses the oldest surviving piece of Waterford glass (a decanter
from 1789) and William Van der Hagen’s 1736 landscape painting of the city of
Waterford.
A French connection is also in evidence. The museum has a Napoleon Mourning Cross
which belonged to Napoleon’s niece Laetitia who married Thomas Wyse of Waterford.
There is also a lock of Napoleon’s hair. When I said to the tour-guide that it was
surprisingly light-coloured for Corsican hair, he replied that it was about two hundred
years old!
I had an interesting and enjoyable visit to Waterford, and I would recommend it as a city to
visit. The blaa wasn’t bad either!