On the Town: The new pedestrian bridge shone brilliantly as the CoisCéim dance troupe beckoned us to step out across the Liffey this week.
"He saw golden arrows of the sun shooting up side streets, leading from the quay to God knows where," read actor Barry McGovern, from Sean O'Casey's autobiography, Pictures in the Hallway, as the bridge was named after him and opened to the public. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and the playwright's daughter, Shivaun O'Casey, were among the first to walk across the Sean O'Casey Bridge.
"The old tattered warehouses bespangled with the dirt of ages, had turned to glory, the river flowing below was now a purple flood marbled with gold and crimson ripples," read McGovern.
"It's a perfect, calm, restrained counterfoil to the Calatrava bridge [planned at Macken Street]," said architect Joan O'Connor, who is on the board of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority (DDDA).
The twin-swing bridge, which is hydraulically operated, spans 88 metres, according to Graham Carr, of Qualter Hall, the south Yorkshire-based sub-contractors who built it.
The construction of the bridge was "a truly international affair", said Lar Bradshaw, chairman of the DDDA, who listed its features, including Chinese granite, Czech steel and French balustrade panels.
Among those who gathered for the ribbon-cutting ceremony were writer and director Peter Sheridan, who grew up in Seville Place on the northside; Mairéad Ní Chíosóig and husband Kevin O'Byrne, from the East Wall, who is chancellor of Saor Ollscoil na hÉireann (Free University of Ireland); Jim Quinlan, chief architect with the Railway Procurement Agency, which is responsible for the Luas; Des Geraghty, former president of Siptu and Labour Cllr Aodhán Ó Riordáin, who teaches at St Laurence O'Toole's on Sheriff Street.