UCC researcher to lead project investigating legacy of Vikings in Europe

Many of the lands they settled — including Normandy, England and the Scottish Isles — later became integrated into developing European states, meaning their profound mark on the language, literature, place names and popular culture of Europe persists to this day.

Now, Dr Tom Birkett, senior lecturer in Old English at UCC's School of English and Digital Humanities, has been awarded a €2m European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant to measure the impact of the Vikings, and how perception of them has developed to reflect the politics, identities and cultural memories of different communities across Europe.

Part of Dr Birkett's five-year project will be a unique crowdsourced map, called NorseMap, which aims to map how Vikings are understood across Europe and to investigate "how the modern understanding of the Vikings has developed over a thousand years and been reimagined in increasingly diverse ways".

"I am excited to lead a project that takes on such a big challenge and that hopes to get people involved in mapping the Vikings across Europe. The Vikings are popular for a reason, and this project hopes to find out why, and what impact this period of history has on our politics, our culture, and our European identity," Dr Birkett said.

Dr Birkett and his team say NorseMap will "make a step change in cultural heritage crowdsourcing" and, overall, the research has the potential to "not only change the way that we carry out reception studies, but also how we think about history and the role we all play in creating it”.

The Vikings are everywhere we look in the modern world, used to entertain, sell products, promote tourism, underpin political movements, and support diverse identities.

"NorseMap asks how is the Viking past used today, and how has public understanding of the Vikings evolved over time?"

Another aspect of the project is the investigation of how ideas, misinformation, and extremist narratives about the Vikings have evolved.

Viking symbolism has a long history within the extreme-right and references to Viking and Nordic culture have been noted within the actions of right-wing extremists and extremist groups in recent years.

The UCC research team say interrogating the extent to which the ‘Viking’ is a construct used to project values and identities onto the past will aid them in measuring "the impact of a historical phenomenon on the present, and to understand how ideas — including misinformation and extremist narratives — develop and spread".

“Congratulations to Tom on securing such a highly competitive and prestigious ERC Consolidator Award. I welcome the opportunities that this award will offer Tom to expand his research team and further develop the international impact of his work," UCC vice-president for research and innovation Professor John F Cryan said.

"I look forward to following the progress of the NorseMap project, and in particular, the citizen science aspect to it.”