The Dark Site
Tales from the Grey Side
River Liffey Bridges
Rivers divide cities and bridges span those divides. The River Liffey's seventeen bridges do what they can to help Dublin's north and south side communicate. A corpus callosum of sorts. The Liffey's bridges date from 1768 (Mellow's Bridge) to my own favourite, 2009?s Samuel Beckett Bridge. Most were built in the nineteenth century.
This video starts with Dublin's most famous bridge, the Ha'penny Bridge, but in general, it flows downstream, from Heuston Bridge, to Dublin Bay and the East-Link Bridge. The Liffey widens bridge by bridge, from a puny thirty metres at its first bridge to three hundred metres at its mouth. Seagulls caw throughout.
Franklin D. Roosevelt maintained that "There can be little doubt that in many ways the story of bridge building is the story of civilisation. By it, we can readily measure an important part of people's progress." I'm not sure I'd go as far as that, but I never tire of crossing the bridges on the River Liffey.
If you want to know more, Wikipedia will give you a brief bio of each bridge. A more in-depth description can be found at the blog Come Here to Me Some excellent black and white photographs, historical background and engineering bumph are provided in A Project History of Dublin's River Liffey Bridges.
Music comes from the Freakin Cry Babies, with permission. They retain all rights. See myspace.com/thefreakincrybabies/ for more tracks and contact info.
Enjoy more of Phillip Donnelly at The Dark Site.
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