Overview
The Liffey takes a long way round to reach the sea. It rises in Liffey Head Bog at about 450m between Kippure and Tonduff in the Wicklow Mountains, then runs roughly 125km in a wide arc through Wicklow, Kildare and Dublin before emptying into Dublin Bay – a journey of well over a hundred kilometres to cover a straight-line distance of barely twenty. Its main tributaries are the Dodder, the Poddle and the Tolka. Around 60% of the flow is abstracted for drinking water before it reaches the city, and ESB hydro-electric stations at Poulaphouca, Golden Falls and Leixlip draw on the rest.
Most visitors only ever see the last few kilometres, the tidal stretch lined with quays and bridges through the city centre. That is the part worth your time. The upper river, dammed and abstracted, is more reservoir than river for much of its length.
History
Early Irish called the river An Ruirthech, ‘fast runner’. The modern name comes from Magh Life, the plain of Kildare it crosses, and probably traces back to a root meaning ‘flow’. Viking traders used it to reach the early settlement of Dubh Linn, and by the 12th century the banks belonged to powerful monastic liberties such as St Mary’s Abbey, whose lands ran from Oxmantown down to the sea.
The bridges chart the city’s growth. The first stone crossing for which there is solid evidence, the Bridge of Dublin, was built by the Dominicans in 1428 and lasted into the 18th century. The cast-iron Ha’penny Bridge opened in 1816 and is still the most photographed crossing in the city. The 21st century added the harp-shaped Samuel Beckett Bridge (2009), designed by Santiago Calatrava, and the Rosie Hackett Bridge (2014), the first in the city named after a woman.
Walking the quays
From Islandbridge to Ringsend the north and south quays form an almost unbroken walkway. If you only do one stretch, walk the south bank from the Ha’penny Bridge east to the Samuel Beckett Bridge. Along the way:
- Custom House – James Gandon’s neoclassical building of 1791, its green dome best seen reflected at high water.
- Famine Memorial – Rowan Gillespie’s gaunt bronze figures on Custom House Quay, among the most affecting public sculpture in the city.
- Ha’penny Bridge – the cast-iron footbridge that charged a halfpenny toll until 1919.
EPIC – The Irish Emigration Museum sits in the CHQ building on the north quays, a good wet-weather stop midway along the walk.
On the water
The tidal stretch is busier than it looks. Several rowing clubs train between Watling Bridge and the Custom House, including those of Trinity College and UCD. The Liffey Voyage, a 50-passenger water tour bus, runs narrated trips from below the Ha’penny Bridge. Two long-running races bookend the summer: the Liffey Descent canoe race (September) runs from Straffan down to Islandbridge, and the Liffey Swim (August), held since 1920, sends hundreds of swimmers from Watling Bridge to the Custom House. Casual swimming, though, is confined to those organised events – this is a working drinking-water river, and the rest of the year it is for rowers and kayakers only.
Upriver
West of the city the river is a chain of reservoirs and linear parks. Poulaphouca Reservoir in west Wicklow is one of the largest water-storage schemes in the country; there is fishing and walking around its edges, though the ESB station itself is closed to the public. The Kildare stretch at Newbridge and Kilcullen has riverside parks good for an hour’s walk.
Wildlife
Grey herons stand on the city weirs all year, and kingfishers turn up on the greener stretches near the Blessington Street Basin and the Leixlip Linear Park. The tidal estuary below the city draws oystercatchers and curlews onto the mud at low water. None of it is wilderness, but the bird life is more varied than a quick glance at the quays would suggest.
Getting there and around
You are never far from the river in the city centre. The Luas Red Line and several Dublin Bus routes cross or follow it, with handy stops at Heuston, Abbey Street and the IFSC. The Liffey Ferry, run by the Irish Nautical Trust, crosses between North Wall Quay and Sir John Rogerson’s Quay – a short, cheap trip and a different angle on the docklands.
Walking the quays is free, and there is no charge to see any of the bridges. Water tours such as the Liffey Voyage run year-round and are booked through the operator. The one practical caveat: the quays are also two of the busiest roads in the city, so the riverside footpaths can be loud and traffic-heavy. The footbridges and the Beckett-bridge end of the walk are the quieter, better-rewarded stretches.