Ladies and gentlemen, please take your glasses, fill them with clean water from your kitchen taps, and join me in drinking a toast to the memory of Sir John Gray, doctor, journalist, parliamentarian, nationalist and campaigner, writes Mary Mulvihill
In so doing, you will echo the actions of no less a character than Leopold Bloom of Ulysses. Back home in Eccles Street with Stephen, after the exertions of the night, Bloom fills his kettle and pays tribute to Gray's lasting achievement, the Roundwood reservoir and Vartry scheme.
For it was John Gray who championed the plan for Ireland's first modern water supply scheme in the 1860s: to collect crystal clear mountain water from the Wicklow hills at Roundwood, build a massive dam and new reservoir there, and lay a large pipe to convey this sparkling water to the citizens of Bray, Dún Laoghaire and Dublin.
Gray was born in Claremorris, Co Mayo in 1815, studied medicine at Glasgow, and afterwards settled in Dublin where he went into practice as a doctor. But he also wrote articles for Dublin newspapers, and the medicine quickly gave way to the journalism: within a couple of years, he had become political editor and joint proprietor of the ("always influential") Freeman's Journal and Daily Commercial Advertiser.
By 1850 he was the Journal's sole owner, and under his careful stewardship its circulation grew significantly.
Those were heady days of campaigning journalism. Gray supported O'Connell's Repeal Movement, for instance, and in 1843 was sentenced to nine months in prison for conspiracy, though the sentence was successfully appealed. In the 1860s, he campaigned vigorously in his pages for the disestablishment of the Church of Ireland. And then, of course, there was the Vartry scheme.
By the 1850s it was clear that Dublin city had outgrown its water supply. The Liffey, Dodder and Poddle rivers, and the Grand and Royal canals, which had all been tapped historically, could not keep up with the growing demand for domestic and industrial water. Also, the water often trickled in at low pressure because of the gentle gradients of these traditional channels. And the new towns of Bray and Dún Laoghaire were crying out for a decent water supply.
Dublin Corporation turned its sights to the clean mountain waters of the Vartry River, and began planning a reservoir at Roundwood and a pipe to convey the water to the metropolis. Because the flow came from a height, this would also improve the water pressure. The canal companies vigorously opposed the project, however: they supplied some of Dublin's water, and the new scheme threatened their revenue from this.
Meanwhile, Gray had been elected to Dublin Corporation and he became the scheme's main champion. It is said he even bought land at Roundwood to prevent it being acquired by property speculators, then sold it without profit to the corporation. Now there's a novel idea.
Gray was appointed chairman of the corporation's waterworks committee and work on the project began in 1862. Construction took five years: a reservoir, dam and embankment were built at Roundwood, and a smaller reservoir in the Dublin suburb of Stillorgan; the two were connected by a 50-kilometre aqueduct. The pipe crosses the Dargle and Cookstown rivers on elegant iron bridges, and delivers water to Bray en route.
Five kilometres of the aqueduct were tunnelled through rock. The engineering historian Dr Ron Cox tells me that part of this was done with a tunnel boring machine which was later used to drill a pilot tunnel for an early "channel tunnel" between England and France.
The Vartry scheme also incorporated sand beds to filter the water, so when the system opened in 1867, Dublin became the first city in northern Europe with a fully filtered water supply.
Leopold Bloom recounts some of the scheme's construction detail in Ulysses: how the water comes from Roundwood, via a subterranean pipe measuring 22 statute miles long and built at a cost of £5 per yard; travelling via the Dargle and Glen of the Downs to a 26-acre reservoir at Stillorgan, and thence via relieving tanks to Leeson Street. You can see the large, black pipe at Leeson Street bridge where it crosses over the Grand Canal, bringing the Wicklow water to town.
In the 1920s the scheme was extended, and there are now two reservoirs at Roundwood. Marshes and woodland surround the shore, and the area is popular with winter fowl. You too can visit: Dublin Corporation allows access to the southern reservoir, where there is a footpath.
The Vartry scheme was an outstanding success, bringing clean water to thousands of people at a time when dirty water frequently carried deadly infections such as cholera. Not surprisingly, Gray was knighted for his efforts, and after he died, a statue was erected by public subscription. He was also elected mayor of Dublin in 1868, but being a modest man, he declined the honour.
His statute still stands in the middle of Dublin's O'Connell Street, watching over passers-by at the junction with Abbey Street, though somewhat overshadowed now by the new Spire.
Spare a thought for him and all he did for Dubliners next time you pass his statue, or next time you raise a glass of water to your lips.