Grand Canal Square, an exciting urban space in Dublin’s Docklands, was opened in June 2007. The square is located at Grand Canal Dock on the south side of the river Liffey between Sir John Rogerson’s Quay and Pearse Street.
Designed by American Landscape Architect, Martha Schwartz and developed by the former Dublin Docklands Development Authority, the 10,000 sq metre square is one of the largest paved public spaces in Dublin city. The €8 million project is among the most innovative landscape design projects ever undertaken in Ireland and Grand Canal Square has become a key cultural destination for Docklands and the city.
The Square features a striking composition of a red “carpet” extending from the theatre into and over the dock. This is crossed by a green “carpet” of paving with lawns and vegetation. The red “carpet” is made of bright red resin-glass paving covered with red glowing angled light sticks. The green “carpet” of polygon-shaped planters filled with marsh like vegetation provides seating and will connect the new hotel to the office development across the square.
Grand Canal Square is also criss-crossed by granite-paved paths that allow movement across it in any possible direction, while still allowing for the Square to host major public events such as festivals and performances. The layout can accommodate a diverse range of activities throughout the day and night.
I PHOTOGRAPHED GRAND CANAL SQUARE USING AN iPHONE 12 PRO MAX 004
The Seán O’Casey Bridge is a very useful, for me and many others, pedestrian swing-bridge spanning the River Liffey. It connects City Quay in the Grand Canal Docks area and North Wall Quay as well as the IFSC.
The bridge was opened by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern in July 2005. It is named after the playwright and Irish Citizen Army member Seán O’Casey (1880–1964) who lived in the North Wall area of the city.
It is often the case when I am out photographing a local decided to provide me with some important information relating to what I am currently photographing. When photographing the area near the Sean O’Casey Bridge, a few weeks ago, I was told that it was no longer possible to open the bridge because the remote control had been lost. I must admit that I did not believe the claim but when I checked I discovered that the story was more-or-less true.
The Seán O’Casey Bridge, which has been unable to open to shipping for many years, was finally re-opened in 2014 after experts created a new remote control for the structure. A new remote control had to be created at a cost of cost of about €1,800 as it had been impossible to open the bridge as the original had been lost. Of course the story was a bit more complicated than described here.
Designed by architect Cyril O’Neill and O’Connor Sutton Cronin Consulting Engineers (for which they won an Institution of Structural Engineers Award for Pedestrian Bridges in 2006), the bridge was built in 2005 as part of a large-scale urban renewal scheme under the Dublin Docklands Development Authority to link the north and south quays and rejuvenate both. The swing bridge spans approximately 100 metres and has two balanced cantilever arms that swing open to permit boats to pass up river. As already mentioned above, in 2010 the remote control that operates the swing bridge was misplaced, and the bridge was unable to be opened until the control system was acquired in 2014.
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