Waterford Treasures Museums
Waterford Treasures Museums in the Viking Triangle, a local authority museum open since 1999, won All-Ireland Museum of the Year 2000 and was shortlisted as European Museum of the Year 2002 and 2014. Since 2011 it has led the Viking Triangle urban regeneration project and now boasts five visitor attractions/museums as well as a walking tour — King of the Vikings Virtual Reality Adventure; Medieval Museum; Bishop's Palace; Irish Silver Museum and the Irish Museum of Time. Waterford Treasures also curates the exhibition in Reginald's Tower. The visitor to Waterford's Viking Triangle can truly experience a thousand years of history in a thousand paces, from the Vikings to the Victorians.
The Great Parchment Book of Waterford/ Liber Antiquissimus Civitatis Waterford is one of the highlights of the Medieval Museum where it is displayed in its own gallery along with large backlit reproductions of some pages. Written in Norman French, Latin and then Hiberno-English it is the earliest Irish municipal record in the latter language. It contains just one word in Irish — Port Láirge — clearly visible in capitals under the illustration of the city on the extraordinary folio for the year 1566.
Spanning the period from 1350 (with some earlier references) to an abrupt end in 1649 the Great Parchment Book gives vivid insights into medieval life in Waterford such as laws to control the sale of meat and fish or pigs running through the streets. Other ordinances are against priests having wives or concubines within the city and against breaking of church windows. Later lovely folios list the mayors and bailiffs year by year.
The Great Parchment Book was compiled from at least five older sources, both copied from and actually incorporating some earlier folios. The binding was completed much later than the final entry in 1649 and may even be eighteenth century. The importance of the Liber has been recognized since the nineteenth century and some extracts were published by Sir John T Gilbert in 1884 and 1885.
In 2007 Waterford Treasures was delighted when the Irish Manuscripts Commission published a translation of the Liber by our dear friend the late Dr Niall J Byrne, making it readily accessible. Digitisation and inclusion in ISOS is a further very welcome development and we are indebted to Professor Pádraig Ó Macháin, Tim O'Neill, Anne Marie O'Brien and The School of Celtic Studies, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies.
Visit: Waterford Treasures Museums
