Remarks by President McAleese On the occasion of the inauguration of the Viking Ships Exhibition o
Remarks by President McAleese On the occasion of the inauguration of the Viking Ships Exhibition on Monday 19 October, 1998
Your Royal Highnesses, Excellencies, distinguished visitors, ladies and gentlemen, I am honoured to be with you here at the National Museum of Ireland on this great day for the Museum. In particular, I want to welcome the Royal couple, Their Highnesses, Prince Joachim and Princess Alexandra, to Ireland. I wish to thank you and indeed Queen Margareta, for your well known interest in the cultural history of Ireland, particularly the shared heritage of both our countries during the Viking Age.
This special exhibition of Viking Ships brings together ship parts from the Viking Age as well as scaled models and replicas of that era. They have been brought here on kind loan from the National Ship Museum at Roskilde. The exhibition also includes an early Medieval Irish shrine brought to Denmark by the Vikings and now returning for display here on loan from the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen.
The Viking Ships exhibition is devoted to the archaeological evidence of ship building during the Viking Age. I am pleased to see a model of the ship, Skuldelev found in Roskilde fjord which was built in Dublin almost a thousand years ago. I understand that it was scuttled in Roskilde and used in the shallow harbour as a barricade to prevent enemy ships from entering Danish waters.
It was a Danish scientist working on tree ring chronology who established that the pattern of tree ring growth in the keel of this ship showed that it was felled in the vicinity of Dublin. This discovery links our two countries very closely and reminds us that the origins of Dublin and indeed of other cities and towns such as Waterford, Limerick and Wexford date back to the Viking era.
I am pleased that relics from the excavations carried out in Dublin by the National Museum of Ireland such as at Woodquay are also represented here today. Also of interest are some items imported to Dublin from Denmark all those years ago.
Again these serve to remind us of the long established ties which exist between our two countries, ties which I am glad to say are even stronger now than ever.
This Viking Ships Museum Exhibition is one of the three great events celebrating Danish Culture which the Danish Government are sharing with us in Ireland as part of their Out of Denmark Festival in Dublin. We have already welcomed the Danish National Symphony Orchestra to the Concert Hall last night. Their Royal Highnesses have opened the very welcome exhibition of paintings at the National Gallery. The Viking Ship Exhibition is the third element of this great Danish celebration and what more appropriate motif of Danish achievement and culture than the Viking Ship itself.
I want to finish by welcoming some of our other distinguished guests here today, Lord Chamberlain, Mr. Thornit, the Danish Minister for Culture Mrs. Gerner Nielsen, and Dr. Tina Damgard-Sorensen, Director of the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde. I wish to pay tribute to his Excellency, the Danish Ambassador Mr. Ulrik Federspiel and his staff at the Royal Danish Embassy who played such an important part in the organisation of this exhibition.
I wish to thank the staff of the Danish Ship Museum at Roskilde, the National Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen, and Dr. Patrick Wallace, Director and Ms. Barbara Nugent, Chairperson of our own National Museum for their hard work in putting together the exhibition.