The Custom House is defined by its long, neoclassical facade and a central copper dome rising above the north bank of the River Liffey. Completed in seventeen ninety-one after a decade of construction, this monumental building was designed…
Docklands and Famine Walk
This walk traces Dublin's journey from the tragic depths of the Great Famine to its modern rise as a global technology hub, following the River Liffey from historic quays to the futuristic Silicon Docks.
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1. Custom House Visitor Centre
2. The Famine Memorial
The Famine Memorial on Custom House Quay consists of a collection of bronze statues depicting gaunt, life-size figures in rags, moving toward the River Liffey. Created by Dublin sculptor Rowan Gillespie and unveiled in nineteen…
3. EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum
EPIC The Irish Emigration Museum occupies the two-hundred-year-old stone vaults of the CHQ building, a structure originally constructed between eighteen seventeen and eighteen twenty to store tobacco, tea, and spirits. Located on Custom…
4. The Jeanie Johnston Famine Ship
The Jeanie Johnston is a three-masted wooden sailing ship moored at Custom House Quay on the River Liffey. It is an authentic replica of a vessel that operated during the Great Famine in the mid-nineteenth century. While many ships of that…
5. Samuel Beckett Bridge
The Samuel Beckett Bridge is a cable-stayed bridge spanning the River Liffey with a distinctive, curving pylon that rises forty-eight meters into the air. Designed by the Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava and opened in two thousand…
6. Diving Bell
The salmon-pink, bell-shaped iron structure standing on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay is a nineteenth-century diving bell. It is fabricated from riveted iron plates and weighs ninety tons, rising thirteen meters above the ground on a modern…
7. Grand Canal Square
Grand Canal Square is marked by a distinctive red resin-glass carpet that stretches from the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre out into the water of the canal. This bright red surface, illuminated at night by angled light sticks, creates a dramatic…