Quote Originally Posted by beloitpiper View Post
The heiroglyphs that Funlvnman photographed I have never seen before. I'm fairly certain that they're not Viking for a few reasons. 1) the Vikings only raided the east coast of Ireland, and even then only founded a few settlements including Dublin, Wexford, and Waterford.
I agree that those markings are practically guaranteed to be a tourist myth. However, the Vikings spread further afield than just the East coast.
I am sure that Clonmacnoise was raided on multiple occasions by the Vikings, and to get to Clonmacnoise, you have to sail to Limerick (very definitely on the west coast) and then all that way up the Shannon!

Quote Originally Posted by McClef View Post
The "needle" you refer to is the Dublin Spike or officially the Monument of Light. It goes under several Dublin rhyming expressions some of which cannot be repeated here...
Dubs definitely come up with some great nicknames for landmarks .
Trivia: The Millennium Spike is also on the former site of Nelson's Pillar, which was blown up in 1966. Amazingly, although it happened in Dublin City centre, there were absolutely no witnesses to this act of commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Easter rising .