CITY RUNS THROUGH THEM: Dublin and Its Twenty River Bridges

An original and fascinating history of Dublin that tells the story of the city through its bridges. Dublin started life on the south bank of the River Liffey as a Viking trading settlement in the middle of the 10th century and for six or seven centuries that is more or less where the town stayed. In all that time, there was only one bridge across the river. The Normans arrived in the late 12th century and Dublin maintained the best communications between the English crown and its new lordship in Ireland. There was a series of fine, wide Georgian streets, squares and notable public buildings and a principal citadel, Dublin Castle, which the English established. Then, suddenly, in the 20 years after 1670, three more bridges were thrown up and the north side was born. Within a century, Dublin was being talked of as one of the ten largest cities in the whole of Europe. Built over a span of a thousand years, the 20 bridges that now traverse the tidal section of the Liffey have each contributed to the city's development, as it pushed through the open fields north of the river and east towards the bay, so much so that it is possible to piece together Dublin's history by tracing their construction in chronological order. Starting with Church Street Bridge, Dublin's first, which dates back to the Vikings, and ending with Rosie Hackett Bridge, erected in 2014, Fergal Tobin charts the rise of Ireland's capital city as never before and reveals how, perhaps more than any other city in the world, it has been truly made by its bridges. The names of some of the bridges include Grattan, O'Connell, Ha'penny, Butt, Loopline, Talbot Memorial, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. 304 page paperback with many colour plates, woodcuts and other illustrations.