Bradogue River
[Above photo taken by Liam Kane, May 2010, River Road Cabra West.]
The Bradogue river has always been associated with the Cabra Area, yet a lot of the people living in Cabra would scratch their head if you ask them about the Bradogue.
The Bradogue is a small river that flows through Cabra and flows into the Liffey at Ormond Quay. Bradogue is an Irish word for ‘Young Salmon’. It’s been here since time began. 
A friend of mine a number of years ago gave me a map outlining the route the river takes and where the it rises. I was surprised at the route it took and I say a lot of Cabra people today would be surprised as well.
There is two rising points. One part of the river rises in the Boogies near our main pitch and runs down the back of the houses on Fassaugh Ave. At a certain point it turns across Dunmanus Road onto Dingle Road and there is a meeting of the waters at the Junction of Carnlough and Drumcliff Road.
The other part of the river rises at Liffey Junction coming out at the first little Bannow and running down the left hand side of Carnlough Road till it reaches the other part at Drumcliff – Carnlough Junction. This is the Bradogue as the main river, it then flows across the railway track right through the back of the club house across Quarry road, across Annaly Road through Christ the King school, where there used to be a small pond in the middle of the yard.
[Above are Brent Geese training in the Bogies Cabra West, getting ready for their summer season in Iceland. Photo by Liam Kane March 2010.]
Across Offaly and Leix Road through the Arch onto the Cabra Road and down Charlville Road through Grange Gorman coming out at Broadstone, down Constitution Hill into Bolton street coming out into the Liffey at Ormond Quay. Since 1930 most of the river was culvert from Cabra to the Liffey. At times over the years there has been flooding at certain parts of the roads that the Bradogue flows over.
I always wonder is it the Bradogue over flowing. In earlier times the Bradogue river flowed into an area called the Pill which was situated at the mouth of the river as it went into the Liffey. This area was a deep pool where boats moored in the early eight century.
It was reclaimed in the seventeen century at the request of Dublin Corporation to a leaseholder of the Lord named Jervis, who said that it took him four years with ten cart loads of earth each day to fill it in.
