The Ha'penny Bridge Is Celebrating Its 200th Birthday
Dublin's most famous bridge is celebrating a major crossing in its life. The Ha'penny Bridge is now 200 years old.
It has connected North and South Dublin at Merchant's Arch and Liffey Street since May 19th, 1816.
It was the only pedestrian-only bridge in Dublin City Centre until 2000, when the Millennium Bridge opened just a couple of breaststrokes up the Liffey.
Name
The Ha'penny Bridge got its name from the price it used to cost to cross it. Pedestrians paid a toll of a ha'penny to ensure a safe river crossing which matched the cost of taking a boat. The toll was eventually dropped in 1919.
Initially around 450 people a day paid the toll, while today it's estimated around 30,000 people cross the bridge daily.
Its official name is actually the Liffey Bridge, which it was christened in 1922, after Ireland secured independence.
Refurb
You may have heard the Ha'penny Bridge referred to by a range of affectionate nicknames, including The Quiver over the River. If it ever did start to shake, Dublin City Council wanted to put a stop to that.
It carried out an extensive refurbishment of the bridge in 2001, with engineers and conservationists joining forces on work that ended up winning a European Union Cultural Heritage/Europa Nostra Award.
Love
Many people have undoubtedly fallen in, and out of, love on Dublin's best known bridge. Some of them have even initialed a padlock and clipped it onto the bridge's railings in a public display of unity.
The so-called Love Locks have been causing Dublin City Council a headache in the past few years, with fears they could be causing damage to the metal.
Engineers plea with loved-up couples not to copy the idea, which first become popular on the Pont des Arcs in Paris.
The Ha'penny Bridge in numbers
30,000 - people cross it every day
200 - years old
184 - the number of years it was Dublin's only pedestrian bridge
43 - meters long
3 - meters wide
1 - Ireland's first cast iron metal bridge
Dublin's Lord Mayor marked the 200th anniversary with a commemorative crossing of the bridge, alongside descendants of Lord Mayor John Claudius Beresford who commissioned the bridge and descendants of John Windsor who designed the bridge.