The Millennium Bridge crosses the River Liffey between Wellington Quay and Ormond Quay, at Eustace Street, close to a historic crossing point.
The banks of the medieval Liffey, particularly on the south side, followed quite a different course to the modern quays. Wellington Quay, on the south side of the river, is part of extensive reclamation works that began in what is now the Temple Bar area in around 1600. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the quay was known as Custom’s Quay because of the location of the then Customs House, which moved amid much controversy to its present location in 1791. When the present quay wall was built in the eighteenth century, replacing the quay built in the seventeenth century, it was renamed Wellington Quay after Arthur Wellesley (1792–1852), the duke of Wellington. On the north side of the river, Ormond Quay, which takes its name from James Butler (1610–88), the first duke of Ormond, was essentially in existence in 1610, but the modern quay wall was built in the eighteenth century.
Documentary sources record the presence of a ford across the Liffey at the north end of Temple Lane, the street parallel to Eustace Street. This ford was known as the Ford of St. Mary’s Abbey, from which Abbey Street gets its name. It was at least pre-Norman in date, probably earlier, and represented an important topographical feature. It continued in use as a dry-foot crossing at low tide throughout the medieval period. However, by the fifteenth century, it was becoming too dangerous. The Augustinian friars, who controlled the crossing at the time (probably charging a toll), were
‘…compelled to stop the hygh way that ys throwe by them ovre the watyr, for perayles that bee imynent of the horsemen by night and in mornynes.’
The ‘highway thrown over the water’ suggests a ford made of stone and wood rather than a bridge.
Speed’s map of Dublin does not depict the ford or even its line, suggesting it was out of use by 1610. Pratt’s 1708 map of Dublin shows a bridge close to the site of the ford, but this bridge does not appear on Rocque’s 1756 map. However, the Temple Lane site still provided a crossing point in the form of a ferry in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
