Timeline

• c1000

  Dubhgall’s Bridge, the Danish Bridge and the Black Danes Bridge are some of the names for the simple bridge or ford thought to be in place here at the turn of the first millennium.

• 1214

  King John grants a charter to Dublin to build a bridge wherever it is needed however,  the date of building is unknown.

• 1317

  King John’s Bridge is dismantled and the stone used to strengthen the walls of Dublin when Robert the Bruce, of Scotland, threatens Dublin. It is later rebuilt.

• 1385

  King John’s Bridge is swept away by floods.

• 1428

  A new bridge is finally completed and is known by various names - Dublin Bridge, the Old Bridge, Friars Bridge or simply, The Bridge.

• 1770

  The Wide Streets Commission grants permission to pull down several old houses at north west end of Old Bridge.

• 1805

  The Old Bridge is described as a ‘crazy, wretched pile of antiquity’.

• 1816
  

  A new bridge begins construction to the same design as Richmond Bridge (now O’Donovan Rossa) and at the same price.

• 1818

  Whitworth Bridge opens.

• 1922

  Whitworth Bridge is renamed Dublin Bridge.

• 1938
  

  Dublin Bridge is named for Father Theobald Mathew.