Dublin and its streets can indeed be heaven, when seen from the speeding coaches of the Luas, enthuses Kieran Fagan
Talk about Luas and people talk bridges. The new cable-stayed landmark Luas Bridge at Dundrum gets special mention. But travel from Sandyford to St Stephen's Green and that bridge quickly becomes part of the background.
When our tram crossed the Victorian nine-arch bridge over the Dodder at Milltown, the man beside me gasped. Below the glinting water snaked down from Dartry, passing the Dropping Well pub on its right, under the Lower Churchtown Road at Classon's Bridge, and continued towards the sea at Ringsend passing below us. Little cars inched along the road on either side . . .
But I'm getting ahead of myself. The journey began at the terminus near the Luas depot in Sandyford industrial estate in South Co Dublin, where 30,000 people work. The brushed steel coat hanger tram moved smoothly forward what seemed to be only a few hundred metres along the side of a reservoir to the first stop, Stillorgan, just south of the Upper Kilmacud Road extension. Then forward and downhill swinging right towards the Kilmacud stop in a cutting between playing fields at St Benildus College.
The large side windows and an almost unrestricted visibility through the forward and rear driver's windscreens allow a 360-degree perspective of the passing scene.
Further down the hill is Balally stop, a major interchange for park- and-ride travellers. Just east of the Wyckham bypass junction, this is a major access point for the new Dundrum shopping centre, and is now hosting most of the builders' cranes in Dublin.
We continue slipping down the hill towards Dundrum village, the Dundrum stop, the site of the original railway station, just south of the new landmark bridge. The stops, not stations, are cool low-key places, with little street furniture and perhaps not enough shelter for winter commuting, more bus shelter than rail station.
Across the bridge and it is a straight fast run to Windy Arbour, behind the houses in the northernmost part of lower Dundrum. The tram accelerates smoothly reaching a speed of about 70 kph. The trees obscure the view of the Milltown golf course; we should be able to see the finishing fairways from here.
Now it is almost a straight line descent into the city. We hurtle between the backs of the houses on the Lower Churchtown Road and St Columbanus Road, a standard railway cutting view, until suddenly the horizon collapses on both sides as we cross the Nine Arch Bridge. We are in the open, high up, crossing the Dodder valley at Milltown. Dartry and Rathgar upriver, Milltown and Clonskeagh downriver.
The Dropping Well pub, lies below, a reminder of a day in the 1920s when a minister for justice, Kevin O'Higgins, looked in and was shocked to see men drinking all day. "They should go home to eat their dinners with their families," he declared and the "Holy Hour" afternoon closing was born, and survived until the 1990s.
Milltown stop at Richmond Avenue reveals that the mediocre architecture of Alexandra College is as dreary from the rear as it is from the front.
More house backs and lock up garages take us south through a cluster of closely spaced stops, Cowper, close to one of the homes of "the General", Martin Cahill, Beechwood, giving access to the southern part of Ranelagh, and the real Ranelagh stop, near a bridge crossing Ranelagh Road, south of the Triangle, where once an order of contemplative nuns sent an unceasing silent stream of prayer and devotion heavenwards. There are Cahill connections around here too, but not involving prayer or nuns, I think.
The next surprise is Claremont stop, high up on a new bridge over the Grand Canal between Ranelagh and Leeson Street bridges. Access is from Charlemont place and Grand Parade. Actor Micheal Mac Liammoir, who used to live around the corner in Harcourt Terrace, might have hopped on here, going to drink champagne with visiting thespians in the bar of the Shelbourne hotel.
And just when you think there can be no more surprises, there is a serpentine squiggle descent from roof level, left, right, left, right on to Adelaide Road and Harcourt Street down to St Stephen's Green and off the tram - exactly 22 minutes after beginning the journey in Sandyford. And I have seen a view of the city as I have never seen it before.