Erriff Bridge

Single-arch road bridge over river, designed 1823; begun 1828; "unfinished" 1829; completed 1831; extant 1838. Part creeper- or ivy-covered tuck pointed rock faced limestone ashlar walls between drag edged rock faced sandstone ashlar battered piers with lichen-covered drag edged tooled cut-limestone stringcourses supporting benchmark-inscribed parapets having tooled cut-limestone rounded coping. Single segmental arch with drag edged tooled limestone ashlar voussoirs centred on drag edged rock faced cut-limestone keystones. Sited spanning Owenmore River with unkempt grass banks to river.

A bridge completed by John A. Killaly (1766-1832) to a design prepared (1823) by Alexander Nimmo (1783-1832), Engineer to the Western District (appointed 1822; replaced 1831), widely regarded as a particularly important component of the early nineteenth-century civil engineering heritage of south County Mayo with the architectural value of the composition, one '[exhibiting] an urban gracefulness unexpected in such a rugged location' (Wilkins 2009, 239), confirmed not only by the rock faced surface finish offset by "sparrow pecked" sheer limestone dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship, but also by the elegant "sweep" of the arch making a pleasing visual statement at a crossing over the Owenmore River: meanwhile, aspects of the composition allegedly stem from the restoration of the bridge 'which had been swept away by a great flood not long since [and] was allowed to remain for some years unrestored, until the Grand Jury of Mayo could decide whether the cost was to be defrayed by the neighbouring barony or the county at large' (Wilde 1867, 35).