O'Connell Bridge

O'Connell Bridge holds a peculiar distinction: it's the only traffic bridge in Europe that is almost exactly as wide as it is long. At approximately 45 metres in both dimensions, it's essentially a square of road suspended over water, which gives it a proportional strangeness that most people don't consciously register but definitely feel. It's a bridge that doesn't quite look like a bridge.

The current structure dates to 1880, when it replaced an earlier narrow humpback bridge called Carlisle Bridge, built in 1795. The city needed a wider crossing to handle the increasing traffic between Dublin's north and south sides, and the architects responded by making it so wide you could practically land a plane on it. It was renamed O'Connell Bridge in 1882 after Daniel O'Connell, whose elaborate statue stands at the bridge's northern end, bullet holes from the 1916 Rising still visible on the base.

The bridge connects O'Connell Street on the north side to Westmoreland Street and D'Olier Street on the south, making it one of the most heavily trafficked intersections in Ireland. Stand in the middle and you can see upriver to the Ha'Penny Bridge and downriver to the Custom House — two of Dublin's finest architectural landmarks framing the Liffey in either direction.

The Liffey underneath is tidal, which means the water level rises and falls with the sea. At low tide, the river can look disappointingly shallow; at high tide, it fills out nicely. Dubliners have a complicated relationship with their river — they love it, complain about it, and make endless jokes about its colour. The bridge is where most of those conversations happen.