Rice Bridge Rice Bridge, December 2003
© Waterford City Library

Archaeology & History:

From Timbertoes to Rice Bridge

Rice Bridge:

By 1981 the Redmond Bridge was branded dangerous and a new bridge was need. The bridge was to have four car lanes and would be built in two stages. The first stage began in August 1982; the two lanes were constructed by the side of Redmond Bridge, this phase was opened on 22nd October 1984.

The main contractor was Irishenco Ltd. of Dublin and the tender was £7.9 million. The consulting engineers were Rendel, Palmer and Triffton of London. The opening span was 40 metres long and weighted 310 tones and was subcontracted out to Hollandia-Kloos of Rotterdam. The entire opening span was transported to Waterford from Rotterdam and was lifted into position by a 400 ton capacity floating crane

The Brother Edmund Ignatius Bridge was opened on 22nd October 1984 by Mr. Liam Kavanagh T.D. Phase one of the Bridge Replacement Project was finished and cars could flow over the two lanes of the City's new bridge.

This was an important milestone for Waterford Corporation as they had been pressing for funding for 16 years to build the bridge. In the second phase the two further lanes were constructed on the site of the demolished bridge. This opened in spring of 1986.

The following morning work began on the demolition of the remains of the Redmond Bridge. Some of the old bridge was used for filling and other pieces were claimed for souvenir purposes. A licence was obtained from the Department of the Environment to dump the rest at sea beyond Hook Head.

A clock feature and lamp standards from the Redmond Bridge were used as part of the inner City housing renewal scheme at Closegate in Manor Street.

Closegate was a development of 56 houses, removing all the older houses from Castle Street and the surrounding area as part of a major rejuvenation in the Manor Street area.

Timbertoes -> Redmond Bridge -> Rice Bridge