A handshake across the Foyle
The Peace Bridge is a self-anchored suspension bridge whose two halves overlap rather than meet head-on, so that the whole 235-metre span reads as a handshake across the River Foyle – locals and the BBC alike call it the ‘structural handshake’. That’s the entire idea. It links the historically unionist Waterside on the east bank with the mainly nationalist city side and its 400-year-old walls on the west, and it was built to make crossing between the two an ordinary daily act rather than a loaded one. It opened on 25 June 2011, in time for the 400th anniversary of the walls, and more than three million people have crossed it since.
Be clear-eyed about what it is: a short, level, five-minute walk from bank to bank, not a day out on its own. The point is the meaning, the view, and where each end drops you – so pair the crossing with Ebrington Square on one side and the Guildhall on the other.
Design, funding and the opening
Designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects with engineering by AECOM (who also built the Sutong Yangtze River Bridge) and fabricated by Rowecord Engineering, the bridge is 4 metres wide with a longest span of 101 metres. The deck is completely flat, with tactile paving along the edges, splitting into a two-way footpath and a cycle lane. It was funded with £14 million from the EU’s PEACE III programme through the SEUPB, with contributions from Northern Ireland’s Department for Social Development and the Republic’s Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government – a cross-border project by design as well as symbol. It has since won five awards, among them the Overall Planning Award and Place Making Award from the Irish Planning Institute.
The opening ceremony gathered the people the bridge was meant to reconcile: EU Commissioner Johannes Hahn, First Minister Peter Robinson, deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness and Taoiseach Enda Kenny, with John Hume among those looking on. It has since been walked by the Dalai Lama in 2013 and former US President Bill Clinton in 2014, and has appeared on a first-class stamp.
Each end of the bridge
The east end lands you in Ebrington Square, a former military barracks turned public plaza that hosts markets, performances and outdoor events, and opens onto St Columb’s Park along the Foyle Greenway.
The west end sits steps from the Guildhall, the neo-Gothic civic building with a Big Ben-inspired clock tower and a fine stained-glass collection – and the traditional starting point for walking the full one-mile circuit of the 17th-century walls, with the Tower Museum and St Columb’s Cathedral close by. If you only add one thing to the crossing, make it the Guildhall: its John Hume Peace Prize collection, the late Nobel laureate’s 1998 Peace Prize among the items on display, is inside, a short walk from the bridge itself.
Practical information
- Cost and hours: free, open 24 hours a day, every day.
- Accessibility: fully accessible – level deck, no steps, tactile paving throughout.
- Parking: the nearest is Ebrington Square Car Park on the Waterside, with pay-and-display bays in the city centre.
- Getting there: about a five-minute walk from Londonderry railway station, and well served by Translink buses on both banks.
- When to photograph: early morning when the Foyle is still, or just after dusk when the arches light up against the sky.
There are no facilities on the bridge itself, but Ebrington Square has public toilets and free Wi-Fi, and cafés and pubs line nearby Duke Street.