I often think that a good way to make the most of a city is to try all its public transportation services because this is what changes from one city to another and what gets very specific sometimes to one city. So living in Dublin, so far I tried the Dart, the Luas and the Dublin Buses, so without surprise, actually I just tried the basic means of transportation..! But I am happy to share here a new discovery I made about an original and not well known means of transportation: The Liffey Ferry.
No bridge to cross the Liffey !
One day, I found myself wandering in Dublin streets trying to get from one side of the Liffey river to another, and surprisingly I was unable to, for the simple reason that I couldn't find any bridge connecting the two sides! I found that so weird, because surely I was not the first person willing to cross the river from the point I was. And then when asking people passing by how to cross the river, they just didn't know, or advised me to go to the next bridge which was over 1km away !!
More precisely I was at the end of Sir John Rogerson's Quay. On my left the closest bridge was Sean O'Casey Bridge but it was too far from me (see map attached). Then on my right I could see another bridge linking the two sides, but there was no physical way of reaching it for the Liffey river was blocking the way. And since the place I needed to go to was just in front of me but only on the opposite side, the only solution for me was to walk down to the Sean O'Casey bridge over 1km then walk up again on the other side to get to destination.
So it seemed a waste of energy for me, and surreal because I could not understand why there was no bridge over such a long distance. It was so weird to have this problem, because I have never been confronted to the dilemma of crossing a river, in a city, when there is no bridge. Indeed, in Paris, or London bridges are separated by less than 500 m whereas from where I was I had to walk a bit more than 1km to get to the next bridge!
The saving yellow Liffey Ferry boat
But fortunately, I noticed this little yellow boat crossing the river from one side to another about halfway towards the Sean O'Casey Bridge, so happily, I went there, relieved that I would not have to walk all the distance to the bridge twice to get to my destination. I was with a friend so, we were not sure it was actually a public crossing service, but the boat driver told us it was, and the boarding ticket was only €2 per person, and we could see casual working people taking it, so it was actually a very common way of crossing the river. So probably noticing that we were a bit lost, the driver made us the good price of €2 for two people which made the experience even more enjoyable. And the ticket was simple printed cardboard (see pics attached), so it gave an impression of a hand-crafted ticket which made me think that it was very specific to Dublin, as if I was paying for a small local crossing service, which I now believe it was. Then, we took the boat and crossed the river in less than 5 min.
The boat was quite small, I would say that it had no more than 10 seats, there was a roof over our heads, basic safety buoys and a driver who drove the boat and attached it to the dock.
So specific to Dubin...
This experience is worth a review because I think it is an experience specific to Dublin that only Dubliners know about because obviously there is no touristic purpose in crossing the river in less than 5min, and the service is not even advertised anywhere, and people around didn't seem to know about it either. Yet, perhaps because I felt lost in front of the impossibility to cross the river I found that this service really deserved some advertisement and praise because it is really useful, handy and also very pleasant because it is always pleasant to cross a river on a boat even if the experience only lasts few minutes.
I'd really recommend this to people who like oddities of Dublin and things that are specific to Dublin, and to let people know that it exists. So if you find yourself on Sir John Rogerson's Quay, be aware that you can cross the river with the Liffey Ferry but I don't think that it should itself be the goal of your day because it is really just a boat crossing a river...!
Now, I'm sure there must me a geographical, historical or even geological reason why there is no bridge in that area but I haven't looked into it, I was just happy that the little yellow boat came to save me!
See the pictures of the ticket and of the boat.
More information: http://www.liffeyferry.com/ read more