WILLIAM DARGAN BRIDGE IN DUNDRUM – AS YOU MAY HAVE GUESSED I LIKE THIS BRIDGE
William Dargan Bridge, opened in 2004, is a cable-stayed bridge in Dundrum, Dublin in Ireland. It carries the Luas light rail line (Green Line) across a busy road junction. The bridge connects rail alignments which were formerly part of the Harcourt Street railway line.
The bridge crosses the R112 and R117 regional roads as well as the little-known Slang River.
William Dargan (28 February 1799 – 7 February 1867) was arguably the most important Irish engineer of the 19th century and certainly the most important figure in railway construction. Dargan designed and built Ireland’s first railway line from Dublin to Dún Laoghaire in 1833. In total he constructed over 1,300 km (800 miles) of railway to important urban centres of Ireland. He was a member of the Royal Dublin Society and also helped establish the National Gallery of Ireland. He was also responsible for the Great Dublin Exhibition held at Leinster lawn in 1853. His achievements were honoured in 1995, when the Dargan Railway Bridge in Belfast was opened, and again in 2004 when the Dargan Bridge, Dublin a new cable stayed bridge for Dublin’s Light Railway Luas were both named after him.
The Royal Dublin Society elected Dargan as a life member in November 1851. After attending the Crystal Palace Exhibition of 1851, William Dargan proposed to the society with an extended exhibition, with an offer of £20, 000 of funding.
As the committee of the 1853 Exhibition believed that this event would be self-financing, mainly relying on Dargan’s contribution of £20, 000, it was announced that there would be no cash donations taken. After the building costs had risen by the autumn of 1852, the committee was forced to make a public subscription, but Dargan offered another £6, 000 as patronage. It eventually reached to the point that Dargan personally funded this exhibition with a considerable amount of £88, 000. Dublin Exhibition received many visitors. Although there were only 400 people on the first two days, this number rises to 4, 000 a week later, and to 5, 000 on the following day. The British royal party arrived at Dun Laoghair on 29 August 1853 at the purpose to attend the exhibition, and Queen Victoria personally meets William Dargan.
Prince Albert commented both on Dargan and the Dublin Exhibition, “Mr Dargan is the man of the people. He is a simple, unobtrusive, retiring man, a thorough Irishman, not always quite sober of an evening, industrious, kind to his workmen, but the only man who has by his own determination & courage put a stop to every strike or combination of workmen, of which the Irish are so fond. All he has done has been done on the field of Industry & not of politics or Religion, without the Priest or factious conspiracy, without the promise of distant extraordinary advantages but with immediate apparent benefit. The Exhibition, which must be pronounced to be very successful, has done wonders in this respect. A private undertaking, unaided by Govt, or any Commission with Royal Authority, made and erected at the sole expense of a single Individual, & this an Irish Road contractor, not long ago a common labourer himself, who had raised himself solely by his own industry & energy, – it deserves the greatest credit & is looked upon by the Irish with infinite self-satisfaction as an emblem of national hope”.
William Dargan ultimately lost £20,000. At the close of the exhibition the Irish National Gallery on Leinster Lawn, as a monument to Dargan, was erected, with a fine bronze statue of himself in front, looking out upon Merrion Square.
THE NINE ARCHES BRIDGE AND OLD CHIMNEY IN MILLTOWN
Milltown is marked by a spectacular 19th-century railway bridge across the river, which was part of the Harcourt Street railway line which ran from Harcourt Street to Bray. On 30 June 2004, the bridge was re-opened for the Luas light rail system which runs from St. Stephen’s Green to Bride’s Glen. This bridge, and sometimes the area immediately surrounding it, became known informally as the ‘Nine Arches’. Milltown railway station opened on 1 May 1860 and finally closed on 31 December 1958.
The Shanagarry Chimney in Milltown is the last remaining structure of an Old Dublin Laundry. It stands, 28.6m tall beside the Nine Arches viaduct. It is now a communications mast generating a revenue €13,880 a year and it was sold at auction in 2018 for €136,000.
Milltown is a suburb on the south-side of Dublin, Ireland. The townland got its name well before the 18th or 19th century. Both Milltown and Clonskeagh were “Liberties” of Dublin, following the English invasion and colonisation in 1290. Milltown was the site of several working mills on the River Dodder and is also the location of the meeting of the River Slang with the Dodder.
On Tuesday, 8 December 2009 the Red Line C1 Connolly to Docklands extension opened. There are four stops: George’s Dock, Mayor Square-NCI, Spencer Dock (serving the new Docklands railway station, approximately 350 metres (1,150 ft) away) and terminating in Point Village, opposite the 3Arena, this extension however bypasses Connolly. Construction started at the beginning of June 2007. Test runs began on the line in September 2009 before the opening.
DAWSON STREET WAS VERY DIFFERENT BACK THEN [APRIL 2017]
Dawson Street looks very different today than it did when I photographed the area in April 2017. At the time there was a lot of construction work that needed to be completed before the introduction of a new tram service.
At 2pm on Saturday 9th December 2017 passenger services began on the Luas Cross City tram service – an extension of the Green Line through the City Centre to Broombridge. The Luas Cross City construction project started in June 2013 and has delivered 5.9km of track with 13 new Luas stops taking Luas through the city centre and north to Broombridge.
The Luas Cross City line is now an important part of the Luas Green Line.
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