bridge

Three-span railway bridge over canal, built 1847, with rock-faced cut-stone piers. Renovated, c.1950, with replacement spans added. Coursed rock-faced cut-stone walls to piers. Irregular coursed cut-stone flanking walls to north-east and to south-west. Replacement reinforced concrete spans, c.1950, with steel I-beams. Sited spanning Grand Canal (Mountmellick Branch) with grass banks to canal.

This railway bridge is a fine structure built as part of the Great South and Western Railway line, forming an imposing feature on the line, and is one of a group of bridges on the section of that railway line that passes through County Kildare. The spans, while replacement, are a good example of the technical feats of the mid twentieth century. The bridge exhibits good quality stone masonry to the piers with fine, crisp joints. The bridge is of considerable historical and social significance as a reminder of the railway network development in Ireland, which brought about many technical advances and developed commercial activity in the mid to late nineteenth century.