The designers of the city boardwalk, now almost a quarter-century old, are ‘dead proud’ of a project that has become part of Dublin’s identity
The boardwalk along the quays of Dublin's River Liffey stretches the 900m distance from Grattan Bridge at Capel Street to Liberty Hall. Photograph: Alan BetsonA wind carrying the chill of autumn is blowing up Dublin’s river Liffey, though it doesn’t deter those who have flocked to the Liffey Boardwalk. The benches along the quay wall are full in several places on this walkway suspended over the river’s edge. It stretches the 900m distance from Grattan Bridge at Capel Street to Liberty Hall.
McGarry says the Liffey “stank” for many years and even in the 1990s it was little more than a “trench” that divided Dublin into north and south. However, as Temple Bar became more successful, Barrett wanted to draw people from there towards the Liffey. In a bid to make more of an amenity of the river, the boardwalk idea emerged.
“But that settled within a matter of weeks,” he adds. “And then it became popular and I still think it’s popular. But now there’s a discussion about the amount of drug dealing or not.” One of McGarry’s colleagues at the time, Matt MacDonagh-Dumler, was newly arrived from the US, where he grew up in an Irish family, and jumped into working on the design of the boardwalk and steel frame that holds it in place. He said the team working on the project wanted to design a light structure that would respect the quay walls and not take from their character.
MacDonagh and Ní Éanaigh chose ekki, a very dense hardwood, because it was so durable. He points out most of the walkway structure today is still the original wood put in place almost a quarter of a century ago. And what of the reputation for drinking, drug-taking, muggings and violent incidents that has dogged the boardwalk; is it more dangerous than other parts of the north inner city?“It’s no more challenging or dangerous than, say, the lanes off Temple Bar just beside it,” said one garda. “It’s definitely not a no-go area and you’ll see that when you go down there.”Another agreed, adding while drug dealing took place on the boardwalk “that’s a Dublin problem, not a boardwalk problem”.
The idea that we wouldn’t put benches into public places – it’s the pits. Talk like that just lowers our expectations,” he says. “There might be other ways to deal with the city drug problem rather than flapping about the benches on the boardwalk.
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