Coolnahinch Bridge

Single-arch canal accommodation bridge carrying small road over Royal Canal, built c. 1817. Round/elliptical-headed arch with dressed limestone voussoirs and dressed ashlar limestone walls. Cut limestone string course at road level. Dressed ashlar limestone parapets with curving ends terminated in dressed limestone piers (on square-plan). Dressed limestone kerbing to canal. Located to the north of the 41st Lock (13313003) and associated lock keeper’s house (13313001), and to the northwest of Keenagh.

A typically well-built canal bridge, which is a valuable part of the architectural and industrial heritage of County Longford. Although humble in form, this structure has a simple and functional elegance. It is robustly built in fine stone masonry, which is testament to the long-term ambitions of the Royal Canal Company at the start of the nineteenth century. It was probably built to designs by John Killaly (1766 – 1832), the engineer responsible for the construction of the Royal Canal through County Longford. The fine construction of Coolnahinch Bridge and the associated canal structures on the site, including a lock keeper's house (13313001) and lock (13313003), are an important reminder of the confidence the canal building era prior to the demise of this transport system in the mid-to-late nineteenth century.