History

Bridges, like buses, have a tendency to come along in twos. And so it was with the James Joyce Bridge which was partnered by the planners, from the outset, with the Samuel Beckett Bridge.

Environmental traffic cells, the Dublin Transportation Initiative recommended in 1995, would bring greater fluency to traffic movement within the city. Two bridges were envisaged: one each, east and west of that reliable old work horse across the river, O’Connell Bridge. And there was a local context - the area around Blackhall Place was socially deprived and commercially stagnant. In 1996, Dublin Corporation published a framework for an Historic Area Rejuvenation Project (H.A.R.P.) and to this a bridge was also central.

The economic recessions of the 1970s and 80s - during which three work-a-day Liffey road bridges were built - were becoming distant memories. The time had come to do something more grandiose for Dublin.

An Environmental Impact Statement put three bridge types under the spotlight - single span, long single span and a three span. What would be the impact of each bridge type visually and in terms of construction? The quays were a busy arterial route through the city - the Port Tunnel was not yet built - and preserving the dynamic visual pattern with views of the Four Courts and the existing bridges was paramount.

Santiago Calatrava, engineer, architect and Joycean scholar, was appointed. With Joyce’s House of the Dead - number 15 Usher’s Island - bringing a literary notoriety to the area, it was an inspired move. Work commenced in April 2001 on Calatrava’s single span design with a working title of Blackhall Place Bridge. The main contractor was Irishenco and the steel fabricators were Harland and Wolff.

The river itself became the workplace, keeping traffic disruption to a minimum. A temporary bridge was constructed to support the deck which was built in situ and the supporting arches, fabricated off site in Harland and Wolff, Belfast, were lowered into place using a computer monitoring precision system. Delays were inevitable given that deliveries were allowed only in off peak traffic times, the tidal nature of the river caused the working platform to flood twice a day and the challenging nature of the river bed, here at one of the narrowest points of the River Liffey.

The James Joyce Bridge opened on June 16th, Bloomsday, 2003.