Along the Liffey countless apartments have roof gardens, terraces, skylights and quirky windows. Emma Cullinan meets a few of the pioneers braving the traffic and crowds to bring new life to the centre of Dublin.
People are a bit iffy about the Liffey. It's seen as a dark, smelly river that meanders over supermarket trolleys at low tide and threatens bankside neighbourhoods when it gets too high. It divides Dublin and has been pretty inaccessible. But the river is changing. The worst of the pollution has been swept out of Dublin Bay, riverside apartments are selling fast and the boardwalk has taken strollers away from the super-sized traffic that hurtles down the quayside. Come hail or shine, Continental wannabes quaff cappuccinos on the walkway, overlooking the water.
Jim Barrett, who is Dublin City Architect, has an office overlooking the river. "In the back of my mind I'm always conscious of it being there," he says, "but I don't get much time to stand and look at it." Yet it does feature in his work. Along with colleagues, he is looking at ways of making the Liffey more accessible. Improvements to the river will range from grand projects, such as a flood barrier and new bridges, to small interventions, which may include knocking holes in parts of the solid quay walls so that people can see the water more easily. There are proposals to add well-designed lights to bridge approaches and reduce the number of parking spaces on the quays. The intention is to turn the Liffey into a desirable destination. "Historically, the river has been seen as a barrier between the north and south sides rather than a facility in its own right," says Barrett.
The boardwalk began the Liffey's transformation. The new extension will open soon; eventually, the boardwalk will run from Heuston Station to Dublin Bay. "The cultural changes in Ireland are unbelievable," says Barrett. "The weather hasn't changed that dramatically, yet people sit out and have coffee on the boardwalk in November, with lorries going by just beside their heads, spewing out all sorts of fumes." The new kiosks on Grattan Bridge were installed to encourage people to come to the river and sit there, as were the glass floor and seats on Santiago Calatrava's James Joyce Bridge. Knocking down the buildings along the Campshires - the land beside the river - in the Docklands has also brought the river closer to people. Now the Docklands Authority is looking at ways to make these areas less bleak.
The river can also be made more accessible by cutting gaps into the heavy, industrial walls in various places. "When I was working in Limerick we cut holes in the river wall and created a balcony on which people could walk," says Barrett. "All the bars and restaurants started putting out tables and chairs. Within a year it was the fashionable place to be seen. Yet it had always been there; you just couldn't see the water."
One of the difficulties with the Liffey is the six-metre tide differential, something that doesn't affect cities such as Rome and Paris. There, you can walk along riverside paths near the water; a quaint notion to those who experienced the 2002 floods in Dublin. Eventually, Dublin will probably have a flood barrier. Various dams have been investigated, but in order to protect the Dodder and Tolka rivers it seems that such a barrier will need to cross a huge expanse of water in the docks rather than the more manageable stretch opposite Custom House, where barriers have been proposed, says Barrett.
"With global warming and the possibility of more floods we'll have no choice, but it won't happen immediately." Such a barrier will maintain a certain level of water, so the supermarket trolleys and traffic cones that stick out of the mud at low tide will be covered for ever. The guaranteed depth will make it easier to sail boats, although some of the bridges are too low for boats to pass beneath at high tide.
The new port tunnel seems destined to make the river quieter, but there could be a long wait. At first only five-axle lorries will be sent underground. The rest will continue to use the quays for a number of years, being phased out slowly. "It won't have the hugely dramatic impact that people might be expecting," says Barrett, "but it will certainly improve. There's been a huge transformation of the river, but it has a long way to go before we can say we've fully utilised its maximum potential."
CIARÁN BENSON: Benson has lived on Ormond Quay for 10 years.
I've known the Liffey practically all my life and watched it go through its various stages. I had a great affection for the dirty old Liffey, being assailed by the smell and appearance of this sad old river.
Now that it is restoring itself, it is wonderful. The Liffey is like an organism that suffered a great assault and has fought back. It empties, it fills and it moves beneath the breezes. I was so pleased when I first saw a cormorant catching fish in the river.
Most people know how the Liffey looks during the day, but it is at its most beautiful at night. There's a whole other life on the river then. There's a parallel set of inhabitants in this city that I've noticed since living here.
Just above the lights are the black-headed gulls. They swoop down into the light and then fly back into the darkness, appearing and disappearing like ghosts. They look so purposeful, and they are, coming down to clean the streets when the party is over.
It's also wonderful watching the Liffey Swim. The swimmers look like shoals of fish splashing in the distance and then, as they come closer, they become more defined. The rowing championships have also changed, there are now more women taking part and they tend to co-ordinate their outfits. There's a connection between the river and the sky. People look into the river's depths and see the doubleness of the visible world in its reflections.
On a clear winter's night you can see Orion over Temple Bar. But the night sky is being ruined by pollution from the street lights and stupid lasers. It is so destructive of the free and perpetually awesome gift of the heavens. It would be simple to have white lights that just shine downwards, like the new street lights in O'Connell Street.
The Millennium Bridge brought really beneficial changes. You now see more people in wheelchairs or with prams crossing over. The traffic lights at the end of the bridge also helped to slow the traffic and favour the pedestrian. The new port tunnel should improve the quayside even more.
DEIRDRE CARROLL: Carroll has run the Bridge Gallery, on Ormond Quay, for 10 years.
I came here because I wanted the incredible spaces offered by the building and the waterfront. It doesn't feel claustrophobic, even though I'm right in the city centre, because of the space in front of us. Sometimes we find ourselves lost in thought near the front window of the gallery, gazing out over the water. We're not the only ones; a lot more people look over the river walls than they used to.
Sometime hundreds of seagulls swoop about - they connect you to the sea - and last year there were lots of big fish here, for some reason. The boardwalk has brought an awful lot of people up here: it doesn't come as far as the gallery, but people tend to wander a bit further up the river after the boardwalk finishes. Collins Barracks and the old Jameson distillery have resulted in more people stumbling across us, often looking for directions.
Smithfield has attracted more people, as has the Luas, and where the tram crosses to Heuston Station there's a great new view down the river. It's lovely seeing the river at night, with the lights beneath the bridges. The kiosks on Grattan Bridge are a bit odd, and they've taken away a beautiful view along there.
Over the years we've got used to the rhythms of the river. It's nice watching the Liffey changing all the time, with the tide going in and out. Even though there is a busy road in front of the building, I can still tell whether the tide is up or down. When it's high, you can just see it over the wall. It's interesting looking into the river when the tide is out, examining the bottom, with its bits of bicycles. The river should be a main feature of this city. There are amazing sunsets here. When the sun sets low over the water it creates a beautiful light.
DARA BEGGAN: Beggan, a managing director, has lived on Arran Quay for 11 years.
When I came to view this apartment I looked out of the window at the river and the sight floored me. I fell in love. I couldn't believe that you could have a view like that in the middle of Dublin. From the third floor you can't even see the road: the apartment just looks straight onto the water. The space in front of us is amazing.
I'm from Galway but find that I now have to stand up for the Liffey. Some Dublin people say it's filthy and smelly, even though they haven't looked closely at it for a while. When the tide is low you can see the seaweed, which does smell when it's exposed to the sun. But there's none of that sewage smell that you might have got in the past.
Two years after I moved in, I looked out of the window and saw a seal. I often see salmon jumping and huge shoals of fish brought in on the tide. Last Saturday I saw two longboats going up and down the river: it was absolutely beautiful. Recreation is the way forward. It would be great to take people up the river in boats, just as they do in Paris and Amsterdam. Imagine if there was a boat every 15 minutes from Heuston, stopping at Smithfield, O'Connell Street and the Point. Dublin has neglected the Liffey. Even now, with all the improvements in civic amenities, I feel that the Liffey is ignored.
It is changing around here. When I first moved into the apartment, people were asking why I'd bought it. None of my family could understand how I could live in the middle of the city, but they've all fallen in love with it now. My mum lived in Dublin 30 years ago, and she says that she left a grimy city. Now, years later, when she comes to visit me, she feels she's returning to Paris. She loves walking up the boardwalk and drinking cappuccino by the Halfpenny Bridge. I had visitors from Poland recently who expected Ireland to be wet and grey, so they were surprised to be sitting on the boardwalk, having pastries and coffee and watching a speedboat zoom past. The walkway has utterly changed the centre of Dublin.
The traffic is horrendous, but ironically it's slowed down so much, due to the sheer volume, that it no longer wakes me up. We do get a lot of black dust on the windows, though. I'm looking forward to the tunnel. The Liffey makes city-centre living worthwhile. When I wake up each day, the first thing I do is look out of the window. The Liffey is lovely to look at, and when it is full it's beautiful.
LIZZIE MEAGHER: Meagher, a journalist, has lived at Clarion Quay, in the Docklands, for two years.
I chose this apartment because it was by the river, but I didn't realise that a riverside apartment was what I was looking for. I had recently moved back from London and met a friend at the Clarion Hotel for a drink. I came out of the side entrance of the hotel, looked up and saw the first phase of the Clarion Quay apartments and just thought it was gorgeous. It seemed a very new idea to be living by the Liffey.
I got such a nice feeling from the place. I loved the contrast of the grubby, gritty cobblestone docks, the heart of Dublin, and this shining new building in its midst, with little cafes and shops around it. It's part of the future of the city.
It's not for everyone. Some people who come to visit say that it's too clinical and officey. This has changed since the openings of the National College of Ireland and a creche. There are now students of all nationalities and mums with babies. The place has got a more mixed community feel in the past year.
Cafes are now open at weekends, although there's still not really much going on in the evenings, except for office parties in the Clarion bar, with annoying chart music blaring out and people shouting. Despite all that noise, there's no real party atmosphere.
The cafes by the river, D1 and the Fish Bar, have tables and chairs outside in the summer, which gives the place a cosmopolitan feel. It's lovely to use the river in that way. The Liffey looks cleaner when you're close to it on a sunny day and the light is bouncing off the water.
Last summer a group of people arrived on a private boat and stopped for a meal in one of the cafes by the water. It was lovely when the Jeanie Johnston was moored here, and then there is the boat outside the Docklands Authority building. When the boats are lit up at night it's so pretty. It would be lovely if barges went up and down it, as they do in Paris and London. It would be great to use the river more interactively.
I sometimes hear seagulls, which is nice, otherwise it seems to be all cranes and lorries; you forget that the river is a place of nature in the urban sprawl. I never saw it as a landmark. I used to feel that the river was a dark, sludgy, dangerous place, in that if you fell in you'd probably die of toxic poisoning. Yet in the summer the local kids jump in and use the Liffey as their swimming pool.
Whenever I come home to the apartment I look out at the river. The Liffey is fascinating in bad weather. When we had that incredible rain just after Christmas the river got so high it came to the top of the dock. When you're in the middle of the city, with its juggernauts, cranes and pollution, it's lovely to have something relaxing to look at. The river is a super asset that is underutilised.
GARETH JONES AND LOUISE McGUINNESS: Jones, a graphic designer, and McGuinness, an architect, live in an apartment on Parkgate Street, opposite Heuston Station.
I love the river, and living at this end of it. One of my favourite things is being able to walk to the zoo in Phoenix Park. It's hard to find areas like this, and yet we weren't even looking for an apartment beside the river or park. But we saw this scheme come up for sale and had to come and see it. There must have been 50 architects at the viewing, and there are quite a few living here now. The huge glass windows give a great view over the river.
You can't see any other houses around here - just the station, trains, mountains - and there are great views of the Guinness Gravity Bar. In London, where I used to live, you'd have to travel for ages to see things like this. It's amazing that everyone divides Dublin by the Liffey, because it's a tiny thing.
It's great living on this part of the river, because there's no quay wall or road between us and the Liffey. Since living here we've been getting into bird watching. Recently we saw a kite flying by with a mouse in its claws. Along with hundreds of fish, we also see seals and otters.
Our son, Dylan, is amazed by the trains coming and going from Heuston, on the other side of the river. He also gets to wave at the boats going past from the rowing clubs just up the river, and once we watched barges parading for three hours.
It's a strange notion to be living by the river in a capital city: it seems such a country idea. I had a different view of the river growing up, as a smelly place flanked by traffic on the quays, which went in two directions on each side back then. I've learnt to love the river now.
STEVE SMITH: Smith, an actor, has lived on Ormond Quay for a year.
I cross the river at least twice a day, over Grattan Bridge, so it's become a marker in my life, a sort of clock that charts my days.
The Liffey is a very dirty river, especially when it is low, although there are not as many shopping trolleys as there used to be. But it's a shame that the city's central vein is filthy and stinky. It could be cleaner. There's a feeling that you could jump in if you wanted to, but ultimately you don't, because it's not that inviting.
Yet it is a living entity, and if you look at it you notice all these things. There's a sense of being close to nature, watching the seagulls and the odd boat. There are now benches on the bridge near here. I don't know who'd want to sit on them, although I did see a man lying on one the other day. The Liffey has its characters; there's a man who is always by the phone box near Grattan Bridge, and then there's the person who sits in the middle of Halfpenny Bridge. It must be so windy.
The Liffey has a certain calming influence, and it does have that link with James Joyce and the beginning and end of Finnegans Wake. Stream of consciousness revolves around the Liffey at one level: a living organism in a contrast stream. If you live in the city centre, the Liffey is the nearest thing you'll get to a garden.
The downsides are the traffic noise and the smell: reminders of the slow destruction of man through fossil-fuel burning. The trucks have an overbearing nature, and sometimes, when you're trying to get to sleep, the house will shudder when a really heavy lorry goes by.
This seems to be the bargain you buy into when living beside the Liffey: the constant traffic and people. It's odd that the river was set up for trade, with goods being carried up and down the river by boats, but now the goods are on the lorries that roar beside the river. The boardwalk is great, but it's better in the summer. In the winter it's a bit of a corridor.I am proud of the Liffey. After all, Dublin's name was derived from it.