Andy Halpin examines the Dunmore Cave hoard from 10th-century Kilkenny, now on display at the National Museum, and suggests an explanation for its collection of silver embellishments
Dunmore Cave is a spectacular natural formation and a popular visitor attraction, just north of Kilkenny. Like many caves, it was clearly frequented – and possibly occupied – by man in earlier times, and evidence of human activity has often been discovered there. Modern visitors are regaled with grim tales of a massacre in the cave, based on accounts of an attack in AD 930 by the Vikings of Dublin on Derc Fearna (usually identified as Dunmore Cave) in which, according to the Annals of the Four Masters, a thousand people died. Possible evidence for this supposed slaughter emerged in 1973, when human bones were discovered in the cave, associated with a hoard (group) of silver coins which can be dated to approximately AD 930
