Islandbridge

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Sarah's Bridge, ca 1820
Sarah's Bridge, ca 1820

Island Bridge (Irish: Droichead na hInse) (formerly Sarah Bridge) is a road bridge spanning the River Liffey, in Dublin, Ireland and joining the South Circular Road to Conyngham Road at the Phoenix Park.

Island Bridge and the surrounding area are so named, because of the island formed here at the junction of the Camac and Liffey rivers.

In 1577, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth, while Sir Henry Sidney was Lord Deputy of Ireland, an arched stone bridge was built here to replace an earlier structure nearby at Kilmainham.

This bridge was swept away by a flood in 1787, and in 1794 the replacement bridge, that is standing today, was constructed. The structure is a single 32-metre span ashlar masonry elliptical arch bridge and was originally named Sarah's Bridge after Sarah, Countess of Westmoreland and Vice-Queen of Ireland, wife of the then Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, John Fane, 10th Earl of Westmorland, who laid the first stone on the June 22, 1794.

The bridge was renamed Island Bridge in 1922 following independence of the Free State, similarly to many other Dublin bridges named for British peers.

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