The Liffey in Dublin

COME back, Catherine Stronge and tell us what really took you. Appointed as one of the few female city refuse collectors for Dublin Corporation, Ms Stronge was accused in 1632 of emptying "filthred and dounge" into the river Liffey. Single-handedly, it seems, she had dumped so much rubbish that loaded gabbard boats couldn't reach Wood Quay except at spring tides. The alderman and constable of Damastreet were "ordered to prevent further abuse".

This is one of the nuggets in a new book on the Liffey by John de Courcy, who is already co-author of an illustrated guide to the river published some eight years ago. Here's another in the 18th century, a Turkish exile named Dr Achmet Borumborad arrived in Ireland and built hot and cold sea-water baths in Dublin. The bathhouse is said to have included an "immense cold pool" which "communicated with the Liffey" and was renewed at every tide.

The establishment was very popular, particularly among members of parliament. It only failed, de Courcy records, when Dr Borumborad "shaved off his beard to win his wife. and declared himself no Turk, but rather Patrick Joyce from Kilkenny".

Described on the flap as a "magisterial" work of reference, the book aims to combine history, archaeology, biography, topology, institutional and civil developments and just about everything in the category "A to Z" on the city's "queer old skeowsha", to borrow from Joyce and his "Anna Livia trinkettoes".

De Courcy begins with a rider. This is an exercise in "pointillism", he says, which is intended to reflect the interaction between city and river. To be included, a place or an event must have proven to be close to the high-tide river bank or shore. That said, the high tide shoreline has changed significantly since 850, just to complicate things.

He has recorded 1,400 entries in alphabetical order, beginning with Abbey Green and ending with Zozimus, the blind 19th-century balladeer otherwise known as Michael Moran who sang of "Egypt's land contaygious to the Nile ..." Dipping in, one can learn more of Candlestick Bay, a deep channel in Dublin Bay between the Rosbeg Bank and Howth Head, which may have been named after a navigation light on the nearby shore stuck in a large cast-iron pan. There's an account of the "jingles" used to transport passengers by four wheels and a horse in the last century.

In 1338, de Courcy tells us, the river froze over and there was bear dancing, running, football and fires for broiling herrings. A similar phenomenon occurred in 1739-40, coinciding with a nine-week freeze-up on the tidal Thames when "coaches plied ... and festivities and diversions of all kinds were enjoyed upon the ice".

The research is meticulous, the scale is breathtaking, and presentation is encyclopaedic - a contrast and companion to the beautifully designed work by Elizabeth Healy et al, entitled The Book of the Liffey: From the Source to the Sea, which was published by Wolfhound in 1988. Thee author has taken on an unenviable task, and will no doubt have his ears bent about what he should or should not have included.

So he will forgive a few small quibbles. Drift-netting for salmon is still a legal, if restricted, activity on the Liffey by Ringsenders; no mention is made of this in the section on "Fish and Fishing Rights". It suggests that commercial fishing only ran up to the turn of the century. Nor does there appear to be any substantial reference to the lively Poolbeg Yachts and Boat Club near the East Link bridge, which is one of the few sailing clubs in the country with a bar in the "black" and a warm welcome for all, whether boat-owning or boatless. Rowing doesn't seem to merit a separate reference either, though there is a marvellous account of "hobbling", the practice of piloting ink visiting ships to moor engaged in by an "unofficial group of adventurous and competitive boatmen". That said, when one has never heard of a turleyhyde before, or the Hangr Hoeg, one really can't afford to carp.