These suggest that the site found at Woodstown was a defended, riverside settlement with evidence of industrial activity, most likely dating from the period - 830 to 940 AD.

[2] About 4,000 objects including silver ingots, lead weights, ships nails, Byzantine coins and Viking weaponry have been recovered through preliminary surface test trenching.

Included were a sword (which may have come from Carolingian Francia rather than Norway itself), a spearhead showing silver inlay, a shield which seemed to have been placed over the dead man’s face, an axe and whetstone.

This pattern of commerce seems to be confined to the area of Kilkenny and Waterford which may mean a distinctive and type of Viking colonisation and settlement in the south-east of Ireland.

Initial studies suggest that the site may have been built and occupied by the local Déise around the time of Saint Patrick and long before the first Vikings arrived in Ireland.