Harping on About Beckett: a new bridge spans the Liffey

Named the Samuel Beckett Bridge, it honours the memory of the Irish dramatist and poet who died in 1989 aged 83.
Irish/Dutch joint venture consortium Graham-Hollandia built it to a design by Spanish architect Dr Santiago Calatrava Valls. The Department of Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Dublin Docklands Development Authority and Dublin City Council funded the €60m ($A107m) project.
Matching its dramatic appearance was its arrival in May this year on a barge having charted its way from Rotterdam, across the English Channel and Irish Sea in a weeklong voyage. The bridge, at 120m long and 48m high, links the north side and south side of the city over the River Liffey in the Dublin Docklands. It has four traffic lanes, cycle tracks and footpaths.
The cable-stayed, steel box girder structure has a span of 120m between north and south quay walls. The asymmetric shape is achieved through the positioning of the support pier outside the navigation channel approximately 28m from the south quay.
The bridge can be opened through an angle of 90° for ships to pass through. This is achieved through a rotational mechanism housed in the base of the pier.
The bridge was fully constructed in Rotterdam, including installation of the cablestays. It was loaded onto a 91m-long barge and towed by tug to Dublin. Weight of the bridge during the 1,010km sea crossings was 2,500t. Wind speed had to be less than 13.8m/s during the barge movements.
Final placement
Once the barge was moored correctly a second barge was positioned under the back end of the bridge. This barge had water ballast equal to the amount of counterballast to be inserted into the bridge.
The counterballast (1,800t of concrete and steel blocks) was then installed into the backstay compartments of the bridge while at the same time an equal amount of water ballast was removed from the barge.
Next, the weight of the bridge was checked using jacks on the barges. The first barge was then skidded 18m along the bridge to create a gap between both barges so the bridge could be positioned over the pier.
Eight skid shoes each of 500t capacity and eight of 400t capacity were used. For the horizontal movement (whereby the barge was “skidded” along the bridge) four push-pull cylinders with a pushing capacity of 64t/cylinder were used.
With the barges skidded correctly, winch ropes were attached to mooring rings along the quay wall. Jacks on both barges then raised the bridge by 100mm.
During the rising tide the bridge was manoeuvred out to the middle of the river. The winch ropes were tensioned and a tugboat used to guide the bridge into its final position over the pier. There was a three-hour window for this.
Once positioned, the bridge was lowered onto the pier making use of the falling tide and increasing the draft of the barges by filling the water ballast tanks. The hydraulic pressure of the jacks was checked to ensure the barges transferred load onto the pier equally.
When the entire load had been transferred and the bridge lined up correctly with the central cylinder, the jacks were retracted and the barges manoeuvred out of the way. The back and forestay cables were then tensioned to the correct values, the central cylinder was welded into position, and final “tuning” ballast installed. 
Wikipedia says Beckett’s works offer a bleak outlook on human culture. One wonders what he would make of the bridge.
  Also making news: an international consortium led by Italian firm Impreglio has won a €4bn ($A7.1bn) contract to build a bridge connecting Sicily to the mainland of Italy. At 3.36km the Strait of Messina Bridge will be the longest suspension bridge in the world. The project is scheduled to begin next year and be completed in 2012.