BALLYGUNNER Castle is a country house in Co Waterford, believed to have been built on the site of a former Viking stronghold.

The Vikings were a seafaring people from Scandinavia who were feared throughout Europe and further afield, and they first came to Ireland in 795, while a second and more intensive period of Viking settlement here began in 914. Among their activities in Kerry was to plunder Skellig Michael, while Smerwick Harbour’s name derives from Norse words that means butter harbour.