The Irish Penny Journal, Vol. 1 No. 34, February 20, 1841

Though our own good metropolis is confessedly one of the most ancient cities in the empire, yet there are few towns of any importance either in England, Scotland, or Ireland, that have so little appearance of old age; we have indeed a couple of venerable cathedrals, which is more, we believe, than any other city in her Majesty’s dominions, except London, can boast of; and we have a few insignificant remains of monastic edifices, but hid in obscure situations, where they are only known to zealous antiquaries:—with the exception of these, however, we have nothing that has not a modern look, though too often a tattered one; nor is there, we believe, a single house within our Circular Road that has seen two hundred years. Our bridges and other public edifices in like manner are all modern—specimens of mushroom architectural aristocracy—very dignified and imposing, no doubt, in their aspect, but without any hallowing associations connected with remote times to make us respect them.
It is owing, perhaps, to these circumstances that we have always had a pleasure in seeing the old-looking bridge and gateway which form the subject of our prefixed illustration—we say old-looking, for in reality neither is very old: but they have an antique appearance about them which prevents us from thinking our city a mere creation of yesterday. They are very picturesque also, and contrast well with the other bridge scenes along our quays, which, though more splendid and architectural, are as yet too new-looking and commonplace.
Though Barrack Bridge, or, as it is more popularly called, Bloody Bridge, is now the oldest of the eight bridges which span the Liffey within our city, its antiquity is no earlier than the close of the seventeenth century: and yet this very bridge is the second structure of the kind erected in Dublin, as previously to its construction there was but one bridge— the Bridge, as it was called, connecting Bridge-street with Church-street—across the Liffey. And this fact is alone sufficient to prove the advance in prosperity and the arts of civilised life which Dublin has made within a period of little more than a century.