Viking volume: Dublin residents tell roaring Splash tourists to tone it down

Viking Splash Tours has agreed to proceed through parts of Dublin with slightly more sensitivity after a resident grew tired of customers shouting outside their home.

A number of motions came before Dublin’s South East Area Committee earlier this year calling on the city council to contact the amphibious tour company about noise complaints.

Part of the fun of Viking Splash Tours is that customers get to shout their way around the capital – mimicking Vikings – while riding in the back of a second World War-era amphibious vehicle.

But the behaviour of the would-be Norse invaders proved too much some. One councillor said residents in Golden Lane area of the south city had complained because they believed tour guides were instructing passengers to scream in unison near St Patrick’s Cathedral, a residential area.

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Cllr Claire Byrne (Green Party) also asked the council to write to the tour operator, requesting that noise be kept to a minimum in residential areas of Dublin 8.

Independent Cllr Mannix Flynn also appears to have been contacted by residents. “The Viking Splash Tour is a very popular activity but more and more residents and businesses are beginning to complain about shouting, screaming and noise levels which can be very startling,” he said.

One councillor later told The Irish Times that the company had been contacted and the local representatives were very pleased with their response.

Viking Splash Tours co-director Fergal Rogers said “any time a complaint comes in we take immediate steps to advise the driver to desist from loud actions or shouting . . . we are not in the business of upsetting anyone.”

He said the company has a “live and let live” attitude and they seek to address complaints straight away with an attitude of “if you were the resident, how would you want the company to act?”

He added that the company has run thousands of tours this year and received only a handful of complaints over the course of the summer.