The Lord Mayor of Dublin, Mr Dermot Lacey, marked Bloomsday yesterday by opening a spectacular new bridge across the Liffey and naming it after James Joyce, who immortalised June 16th, 1904, in his great novel Ulysses.
Within sight of No 15 Ushers Island, the house where Joyce had set The Dead, now being restored after years of dereliction, Mr Lacey said the opening of this new bridge was of "immense importance to the life of the city", particularly on Bloomsday.
Wearing a straw boater for the occasion, he paid tribute to Dr Santiago Calatrava, the Spanish architect-engineer, and to everyone who had worked so hard to turn his design into a living reality - including Harland and Wolff, the Belfast ship-builders.
Dr Clatrava was late for the ceremony as he missed his flight due to traffic congestion in London. When he finally arrived, he said the bridge was "a testimony of love, of respect and devotion to the city and this country and the memory of James Joyce".
He said he had spent 28 years in Zurich, where Joyce had also lived - and died - so that gave the bridge a "very particular significance". It was the city and its name that made the bridge because it was done for Dubliners to enjoy.
Mr Michael Phillips, the city engineer, described it as "a bridge of our time".
Though it followed the arch principle, like the masonry and iron bridges of the past, it lifted its arch above the bridge to create a "fantastic structure" of landmark quality.
Mr Tim Brick, deputy city engineer said its real value would not merely be to facilitate traffic bypassing the city centre, but to set a high standard of design for an area that was likely to see a lot of new development. "If it achieves that, it's worth every penny."
The bridge, which was built by Mowlem/IrishEnco, was budgeted at €6.4 million when the contract was signed two years ago.
While the final account has yet to be agreed, it is likely to cost €8.4 million - as a result of delays and construction problems.
Dramatic and contemporary in design, the new bridge with its white-painted steel structure glistened yesterday in bright sunshine. The first vehicle to cross it after the barriers were removed was an empty Tony Doyle coach, which got a round of applause.
Not long after it opened, people were already sitting out on the granite benches of its remarkably wide pedestrian areas on either side of the bridge, which is nearly as broad as its 40-metre span. It also also includes two cycle tracks as well as four traffic lanes.
The bridge is an intergrated part of the North King Street traffic management scheme and has been designed to faciltate buses, in particular.
