The Craigavon Bridge is one of three

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually someth ...

s in

Derry Derry, officially Londonderry (), is the second-largest city in Northern Ireland and the fifth-largest city on the island of Ireland. The name ''Derry'' is an anglicisation of the Old Irish name (modern Irish: ) meaning 'oak grove'. The ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label=Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is #Descriptions, variously described as ...

. It crosses the

River Foyle The River Foyle () is a river in west Ulster in the northwest of the island of Ireland, which flows from the confluence of the rivers Finn and Mourne at the towns of Lifford in County Donegal, Republic of Ireland, and Strabane in Co ...

further south than the

Foyle Bridge The Foyle Bridge is a bridge in Derry, Northern Ireland. The central cantilever span of the bridge is the second longest on the island of Ireland, at 234 metres (767 ft), and the whole suspended bridge structure including the approach spans ...

and

Peace Bridge The Peace Bridge is an international bridge between Canada and the United States at the east end of Lake Erie at the source of the Niagara River, about upriver of Niagara Falls. It connects Buffalo, New York, in the United States to Fo ...

. It is one of only a few double-decker road bridges in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. It was named after

Lord Craigavon James Craig, 1st Viscount Craigavon PC PC (NI) DL (8 January 1871 – 24 November 1940), was a leading Irish unionist and a key architect of Northern Ireland as a devolved region within the United Kingdom. During the Home Rule Crisis of 191 ...

, the first

Prime Minister of Northern Ireland The prime minister of Northern Ireland was the head of the Government of Northern Ireland between 1921 and 1972. No such office was provided for in the Government of Ireland Act 1920; however, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, as with governo ...

. The present bridge was designed by the City Architect, Matthew A Robinson. Construction began in the late 1920s and was finished in 1933. The lower deck of the bridge originally carried a

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a p ...

line for freight wagons, but that was replaced by a road in 1968. At each end, a silhouetted mural of a railway station stands to mark the former railway. On 3 July 1968, as part of a series of protests against housing conditions in Derry, the Derry Housing Action Committee (DHAC) held a sit-down protest on the newly opened second deck of the Craigavon Bridge. A pair of bronze statues forming a sculpture entitled ''

Hands Across the Divide ''Hands Across the Divide'' is a sculpture in Derry, Northern Ireland. The statue was created by Maurice Harron, and erected in 1992. It stands on the western side of the Craigavon Bridge The Craigavon Bridge is one of three bridges in Der ...

'' are situated at the west end of Craigavon Bridge in Carlisle Square and were produced by Derry sculptor

Maurice Harron Maurice Harron (born 1946) is a sculptor from Derry, Northern Ireland. Harron was educated at St Columb's College. At the Ulster College of Art and Design in Belfast, he studied sculpture. Much of his work is public art sculpture and he has w ...

History

Craigavon Bridge is one of three bridges to be built in the area. The first bridge over the River Foyle was a wooden one, assembled in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and transported to

. It was built from 1789–1791, and sited between Bridge Street and Fountain Hill, about 90 metres north of the present bridge. The structure included a drawbridge because the inhabitants of

Strabane Strabane ( ; ) is a town in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. Strabane had a population of 13,172 at the 2011 Census. It lies on the east bank of the River Foyle. It is roughly midway from Omagh, Derry and Letterkenny. The River Foyle mark ...

had navigational rights on the river. In 1863, the steel Carlisle Bridge was erected, a little further upstream, almost where Craigavon Bridge is today, to replace the old wooden bridge.

References

{{coord, 54, 59, 26, N, 7, 19, 4, W, type:landmark, display=title Bridges in Northern Ireland Buildings and structures in Derry (city) Bridges completed in 1933 Derry (city) Double-decker bridges