Shortlist of names for new Dublin bridge

Dublin City Council has announced the shortlist for the name of the new bridge over the river Liffey connecting Marlborough Street and Eden Quay on the north side with Hawkins St and Burgh Quay on the south side.

The council’s Commemorative Naming Committee whittled the 85 official nominations down to 17 and the winning name will be selected on 12 June.

The council revealed that it had received almost 10,000 supporting submissions for names for the public transport, cycle and pedestrian bridge which is scheduled for completion later this year. 

All the people included in the list of proposed names are deceased, and the list features predominantly patriots and figures from literary circles or left-wing politics. There are 11 men and only three women on the list, which also includes three names honouring a theatre, patriots, and returned soldiers.

The following names have made it to the shortlist:

Abbey Theatre Bridge (in honour of the national theatre on Abbey Street.)

Bermingham, Willie (A Dublin campaigner who founded ALONE (A Little Offering Never Ends), an organisation highlighting the plight of old people living alone.)

Connolly, James (Scottish-born republican and socialist leader executed by British firing squad for his role in the 1916 Rising. A statue of Connolly can be found near the Custom House.)

Duff, Frank (High-profile lay figure within Irish Catholicism, Duff is best-known for establishing the Legion of Mary movement in 1921.)

Gregory, Lady (Lady Augusta Gregory was an Anglo-Irish nationalist, a co-founder of the Abbey Theatre and leading figure in the Irish Literary Revival in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.)

Gregory, Tony (A well-known independent socialist politician from north-inner city Dublin, Gregory died in 2009.)

Hackett, Rosie (A 1916 freedom fighter, leading trade unionist and co-founder of the Irish Women Workers Union.)

Mills, Kay (Celebrated player of camogie, the female equivalent of Irish national sport hurling.)

Plunkett, James (Dublin writer best known for his 1969 historical novel "Strumpet City".)

Sigerson, George (Physician, scientist, writer, politician and poet who, along with Lady Gregory, was a leading light in the Irish Literary Revival.)

Stoker, Bram (19th-century writer best known for his universally famous gothic novel, "Dracula".)

Swift, Jonathan (17th-century Anglo-Irish writer and cleric best known for penning "Gulliver's Travels".)

The Patriots Bridge

The Returned Home (in honour of the estimated 100,000 Irish men and women who returned home to Ireland after serving in the British army during world war one.)

Walton, Ernest (The first person in history to artificially split the atom, the physicist is the only Irishman to have won a Nobel Prize in Science.)

Wilde, Oscar (The celebrated Dublin writer, poet and wit whose fall from grace saw him die in penniless exile in Paris in 1900.)

Yeats, W.B. (The poet and playwright was a giant in 20^th-century Irish literature, who in 1923 became the first Irishman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.)