River Poddle

River Poddle
River Poddle in Templeogue looking downstream
Native name	An Poitéal
Basin features
Main source	Cookstown, Tallaght, County Dublin
River mouth	Discharges into River Liffey at Wellington Quay (Map)
River system	River Liffey
Tributaries	Left: Commons Water (Coombe Stream)

The River Poddle (Irish: An Poitéal) is a river in County Dublin in Ireland. The city of Dublin is named after a "dark pool" (dubh linn, in Irish) that was once on its course. It rises in the Cookstown area, north of Tallaght, and flows into the River Liffey in the centre of Dublin.

The Poddle begins as the Tymon River in the Cookstown area northwest of Tallaght village, near the site of Fettercairn House, and flows east, through Tymon North, and northeast, forming the northern border of Templeogue, towards Greenhills. Additional ponds were added to its course when Tymon Park was formed in the 1980s and 1990s. The river flows from Greenhills into Kimmage, where it used to receive an artificial stream from the direction of Templeogue. This, the City Watercourse, carried water from the River Dodder extracted at Balrothery Weir.

The Poddle's modest volume was increased for over 700 years by the significant addition of water diverted from the River Dodder at the great weir at Balrothery, north of Firhouse, and carried by the three-kilometre first section of the City Watercourse. The ancient watercourse was

The river is split at "The Tongue" at Mount Argus monastery in Harold's Cross, with one third of the flow forming the second section of the City Watercourse, heading for Crumlin Road and Dolphin's Barn, and two thirds continuing along a form of the original river bed. In the 1990s, changes were made in the Kimmage area, including the addition of a large fountain to the river.

The line of the two Poddle flows later recombine and pass under much of the south city centre in a culvert. The final stages of the river's flow are complex, with related waters separating and joining. Linked flows include the Tenter Water, and the river is joined by the Commons Water from the Coombe, and ultimately Crumlin. The present main course is itself a diversion, the Abbey Stream, of the original course, which ran further east.