Dublin’s most iconic bridge over the River Liffey is the Ha’penny Bridge. Designed by John Windsor and costing over £3,894, the 43m wide bridge was manufactured in Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, the first centre of iron casting in Britain. The segments were transported across the Irish seas by sailing ships and assembled in 1816 on-site. Now one of the oldest surviving cast-iron bridges in the world, it was originally named Wellington Bridge, after the Dublin-
born duke who had defeated Napoleon at Waterloo. Since 1923 it has been officially called the Liffey Bridge, but it is still more commonly known as the Halfpenny or Ha’penny Bridge recalling a toll that was charged until 1916. Romances, engagements and wedding parties have all been witnessed by the bridge down the years as was the making of many films such as Michael Collins, Far and Away, The Dead, Once, The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne and many more. As you might expect, Leopold Bloom, the main character in James Joyce’s famed Ulysses, meanders over the bridge as part of his convoluted odyssey
