As Dubliners of every class donated their pennies to the cause of the King’s Bridge, there emerged in 1825 another grand plan for the river. The Liffey, having curved snakelike across this terrain since time immemorial, was to be teased onto a new course, here, west of the old city,...
She visited the poor of Dublin accompanied by a retinue of servants, yet the heavily veiled figure never left her carriage but directed the distribution of alms from its shadowy interior. Bare footed children and ragged youths loitered, just close enough for her to hear their derisive snorts and grunts....