AS A PLEASANT diversion from our current difficulties, readers have been exercised suggesting names for the new bridge under construction in the River Liffey between Marlborough Street and Hawkins Street. Since the debate was started by Frank McNally last May, proposals have ranged from deeply serious to wildly flippant: including writers Brendan Behan, Maeve Binchy, Con Houlihan, Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill, Flann O’Brien and Bram Stoker; deceased political figures Joseph Biggar, Edward Carson, James Connolly, Garret FitzGerald, Tony Gregory, Charlie Haughey and Gordon Wilson; still living ones such as Aung San Suu Kyi, Mary Robinson and Mary and Martin McAleese; sporting heroes Brian O’Driscoll, Darren Sutherland and Katie Taylor; musicians Ronnie Drew, Barney McKenna and Pete St John, and scientists William Rowan Hamilton, Craig Venter, Ernest Walton and Erwin Schrödinger – the latter suggested by us.
Other names included Dion Boucicault, Crosaire, Eileen Gray, Chuck Feeney, Maud Gonne, Mná ha hÉireann, Siobhán McKenna, Maureen Potter, tenor Dermot Troy, Hanna Sheehy Skeffington, Lily McCauley (who sold newspapers on Hawkins Street for many years) and Constable Patrick Sheahan (a heroic policeman whose memorial on the corner of the street has been removed temporarily) or that it should be called Blooms Brdge, Choktaw Bridge, Gore-Booth Bridge (in memory of Constance and Eva Gore-Booth), Four Provinces Bridge or Proclamation Bridge (even though it’s not exactly close to the GPO). There were jocose suggestions too, such as the Bailout Bridge, the Troika Bridge, the Bridge Over Troubled Waters or the Luas Change Bridge, because it will carry a missing link between city’s two two light rail lines.
The important and, indeed, solemn role of naming new bridges is a function of the elected members of Dublin City Council. The last three were all named for literary figures – Seán O’Casey, James Joyce and Samuel Beckett – although why their first names were included is something of an anomaly. The council’s Labour Party group is pressing for the new bridge to be named James Connolly Bridge, which seems to overlook the fact that Connolly is already commemorated by a statue opposite Liberty Hall. Paddy McCartan, a Fine Gael councillor, is proposing that it should simply be called the Abbey Bridge, given that the national theatre will ultimately be extended to Eden Quay, alongside the new bridge. This makes perfect sense and should be supported.