Bridge in Cloonbeg

Double-span railway bridge, erected 1895, now disused. Land ends of bridge comprise broken-coursed rubble limestone revetments with flanking parapets and having margined rock-faced quoins, string course and copings, and flanked by sloping buttresses. Pier to river with similar construction and detailing and having battered sides and round-nosed cutwater. Superstructure of bridge is steel girder with riveted plate and having corrugated sheet sections to bridge bed covered with gravel and earth. Bridge surface overgrown and in poor condition.

This rail bridge serves to illustrate the expansion of the rail network in the country at the end of the nineteenth century and the opening up of further areas of trade and commerce. The use of stone and steel as materials of construction attest to the strength of economy and industry in the late Victorian era.