The Farmleigh Bridge (), also known as the Silver Bridge, Guinness Bridge or Strawberry Beds Bridge, is a disused bridge spanning the

River Liffey The River Liffey (Irish language, Irish: ''An Life'', historically ''An Ruirthe(a)ch'') is a river in eastern Ireland that ultimately flows through the centre of Dublin to its mouth within Dublin Bay. Its major Tributary, tributaries include t ...

and the Lower Lucan Road in the

Strawberry Beds Strawberry Beds or The Strawberry Beds () is a locality and small settlement 7 km to the west of Dublin, Dublin City, Republic of Ireland, Ireland, located on the northern banks of the River Liffey between Chapelizod and Lucan, Dublin, Luc ...

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

, Ireland.

Form

Farmleigh Bridge is a single-span

cast iron Cast iron is a class of iron–carbon alloys with a carbon content of more than 2% and silicon content around 1–3%. Its usefulness derives from its relatively low melting temperature. The alloying elements determine the form in which its car ...

box truss A box (plural: boxes) is a container with rigid sides used for the storage or transportation of its contents. Most boxes have flat, parallel, rectangular sides (typically rectangular prisms). Boxes can be very small (like a matchbox) or very ...

bridge. It is about long and is supported by two stone and masonry supports faced with cut limestone blocks, and embellished with buttresses and round-headed arches.

History

In an 1836

Ordnance Survey The Ordnance Survey (OS) is the national mapping agency for Great Britain. The agency's name indicates its original military purpose (see Artillery, ordnance and surveying), which was to map Scotland in the wake of the Jacobite rising of ...

map of the Strawberry Beds area, two ferries are depicted as operating on the Liffey. One was situated at the bottom of Knockmaroon Hill and the other was a half-mile upstream where the current Farmleigh Bridge now stands. It is suspected that the ferry at this site was a private operation for the Guinness family as they owned land on the south bank of the river. It is understood the iron bridge eventually replaced the ferry and was probably built by the engineering department of the

Guinness Brewery St. James's Gate Brewery is a brewery founded in 1759 in Dublin, Ireland, by Arthur Guinness. The company is now a part of Diageo, a company formed from the merger of Guinness and Grand Metropolitan in 1997. The main product of the brewery is ...

. It was built in the 1870s to carry water pipes and electricity lines from the

mill race A mill race, millrace or millrun, mill lade (Scotland) or mill leat (Southwest England) is the current of water that turns a water wheel, or the channel ( sluice) conducting water to or from a water wheel. Compared with the broad waters of a m ...

turbine to the nearby Farmleigh House and the clock tower (which housed a large water tank), by Edward Cecil Guinness who had bought the estate in 1872. There were ornate gates at either end of the bridge and a tunnel entrance where it ended abruptly on the side of a hill. The pipes and cables were covered by a deck for pedestrian use. Privately built by the

Guinness family The Guinness family is an extensive Irish family known for its achievements in brewing, banking, politics, and religious ministry. The brewing branch is particularly well known among the general public for producing the dry stout beer Guinnes ...

, it was also used by staff who lived on the south side of the river (by

Palmerstown Palmerstown (; officially Palmerston, see #Name origin and spelling, spelling) is a Civil parishes in Ireland, civil parish and suburb in western Dublin, Ireland on the banks of the River Liffey. It forms part of the South Dublin local authorit ...

) as a short-cut to the grand house.

Status and conservation

The bridge (near the Angler's Rest pub) is long disused, with no remaining base or platform to carry traffic. Though the elaborate stone gateway remains, the tunnel is no longer accessible and has been collapsed. As of late 2015, campaigners had initiated a petition for the bridge to be restored and used as part of a Liffey greenway plan. However, as of mid-2016, no funding had been allocated by Fingal County Council to renovation of the bridge. In 2021 it was featured in the

RTÉ One RTÉ One is an Irish free-to-air flagship television channel owned and operated by RTÉ. It is the most-popular and most-watched television channel in the country and was launched as ''Telefís Éireann'' on 31 December 1961, it was renamed ''R ...

television series . In 2022, Fingal County Council allocated €1.5 million for works to conserve, but not reopen, the bridge.

Sources

References

{{Dublin Liffey Bridges Buildings and structures in Fingal Bridges in County Dublin