Reginald's Tower

Ireland's oldest civic building — a Viking tower at the apex of the city walls, now a Viking heritage museum

Reginald's Tower stands at the eastern end of Waterford's quays, where the original Viking city walls met the River Suir. It is Ireland's oldest civic building and the oldest urban structure in the country still in its original use — as a defensive and ceremonial building for the city. The first tower was built by the Vikings shortly after they founded the city in 914 AD; the current structure dates primarily from the twelfth century.

The tower now houses a Viking heritage exhibition, with artefacts recovered from archaeological excavations across the city. The collection is smaller than the Medieval Museum but the context — standing in a Viking-era tower looking at Viking-era objects — gives it an immediacy that display cases in a modern museum can't quite replicate. The views from the tower's upper levels over the River Suir are worth the climb alone.

Reginald's Tower is at Parade Quay, Waterford. It is one of the five Waterford Treasures museums.

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A story
Reginald's Tower has witnessed more of Irish history than almost any other surviving building: it was here that Richard II received the submission of Irish kings in 1394 and 1395; it was here that Henry II's treaty with the Irish chieftains was sealed after the Norman invasion; and it was here that the marriage of Strongbow and Aoife, the event that effectively began the Norman conquest of Ireland, may have been negotiated. The tower has been a royal fortress, a mint, a prison, a military stores depot, and now a museum — and it has been in continuous use since the Vikings built the first structure on this site in the early tenth century.

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