A historic event was witnessed by many passers-by when one Sunday early in November the new Millennium bridge was lifted into place. The operation took little more than half an hour, while the largest telescopic crane in Ireland swung it over the river. The moment when the bridge opens to the public next Monday morning, after a ceremony performed by the Lord Mayor, will be more significant still - in a city with the Liffey at its spiritual heart, the crossing of the river by foot bridge is an important ritual.
The new foot bridge was first proposed at Ormond Quay/Wellington Quay in the late 1980s, as part of the overall plan for the Temple Bar area, but the scheme was not pursued. In 1998 a competition was held to design a pedestrian bridge for the same site, and the architectural team of James Howley and Sean Harrington, along with their engineers, won the contract out of a total of 153 entries. The Millennium Bridge will provide access from the Abbey Street area on the north side to the Eustace Street area in Temple Bar on the south side.
The new bridge is restrained, and does not compete with its older sister - the Halfpenny Bridge, or with the wide and solid Grattan Bridge. Through its simplicity it respects the historic nature of its surroundings, the quay walls and the old quayside houses. In fact, the desire to respect existing historic structures was part of the brief for the bridge design.
Some concern has been expressed about another major intervention on the quays which will directly affect the Millennium Bridge and the Halfpenny bridge - the construction of an over-hanging walk way on Bachelors Walk and Ormond Quay. Fears have been aired that this walk- way, though finished to a high standard, will become a white-elephant and that its steel structure beneath will gather plastic and other debris floating down the Liffey. There is also concern for the visual effect at the junctions of the walk-way with the pedestrian bridges, whose existing granite parapets are attractive features of the Liffey quays in their own right; thankfully, the curved abutments which support the new bridge are being faced in similar granite to that on the Halfpenny Bridge.
The Millennium Bridge brings the count of bridges over the city section of the Liffey to 16, including those from Islandbridge to the West Link. A second new bridge, designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava, is planned for the Docklands area, and a third at Blackhall Place.
Dublin's name in Irish, "Baile Atha Cliath" refers to a time when the Liffey had no bridges, except a ford made of branches, which may have been somewhere near the Four Courts. A plan of the city in 1661 shows just one bridge, which gave access from the north via the present Church Street, over the river and through an arched gate into the medieval walled city of Dublin. If you needed to cross anywhere downstream, a number of ferries could transport you across. Records exist of the many ferries which plied the Liffey since medieval times and continued to do so until 1984, when the last crossing was made by the Ringsend boat.
Several new bridges were erected towards the end of the 17th century, one at Watling Street near Collins Barracks, one at Queen Street, one at Winetavern Street near the Four Courts, and another at Capel Street, which was called Essex Bridge. All of these were rebuilt or modified during the Georgian period and were renamed at various times.
One of the most attractive early bridges in Dublin is at Queen Street, officially called Liam Mellows bridge. This elegantly hump-backed, three-arched bridge was erected during the 1760s, and has a distinguished appearance with its granite stone work, niches and ballustraded parapet. It is one of the few bridges, apart from the Halfpenny bridge, which was allowed to keep its gradient and was not rebuilt flat to convenience traffic. Such bridges, with a high central arch, not only allowed large boats to pass beneath, but also created a more satisfactory visual ensemble.
Watling Street Bridge, now called Rory O'More Bridge, was in 1812 given the remarkable addition of a mock medieval gateway, a substantial limestone structure which was later dismantled and moved to Kilmainham where it forms one of the entrances to the Royal Hospital.
The Halfpenny Bridge, erected shortly after 1816 is one of the most memorable 19th-century cast-iron structures in Ireland, but equally attractive and certainly more ornate is King's Bridge, which was put up in 1821 to commemorate the visit of King George the fourth. The bridge has recently been thoroughly restored and repainted by Dublin Corporation, which is currently cleaning, painting and lighting all of the city-centre bridges, "bridgebuilding" for the new Millennium.
As each new bridge was constructed further seawards, the Port of Dublin continued to move east. Since the 18th century, ships have evolved into larger and larger vessels, requiring deeper berths. A glance at a print or painting of Dublin Port in 1790 shows that most ships were then no bigger than one of today's large trawlers. The fact that the Liffey and Dublin Port were historically one and the same accounts for the involvement of the Dublin Port and Docks Board in the construction and maintenance of the quay walls and bridges. The finance to do this work came mainly from a levy on shipping. Following the building of Carlisle (now O'Connell) bridge, the quays lying to the west were no longer used by ships, and responsibility for them and the various older bridges was largely taken over by Dublin Corporation. Ships continued to berth at Eden Quay and Burgh Quay during the latter part of the 19th century, as many photographs of the period reveal. The building of Butt Bridge, with its opening section, in 1879 still allowed vessels to reach these quays. Some of the last memories of this maritime commerce only disappeared within the past year or two, with the disappearance of the Dublin Sack Company building on George's Quay and the closure of McCann Verdons ships chandlers at Burgh Quay.
