Gore's Bridge

Nine-arch bridge over river, built 1760. Part repointed rubble limestone walls centred on granite ashlar triangular cutwaters to piers to upriver (north) elevation having shallow pyramidal capping with cut-granite rounded coping to parapets. Series of nine round arches with granite ashlar voussoirs. Sited spanning River Barrow with grass banks to river.

A bridge erected by Samuel Biass and Thomas Dunn representing an important component of the mid eighteenth-century civil engineering heritage of County Kilkenny with the architectural value of the composition confirmed not only by the silver-grey granite dressings demonstrating good quality workmanship, but also by the elegant "sweep" of the arches making a pleasing visual statement at a crossing over the River Barrow: meanwhile, the bridge remains of additional interest for its connections with the Battle of Goresbridge (23rd June 1798) when a party of rebels 'commanded by General Roche, Edward Fitzgerald, and priest John Murphy…made their appearance opposite Gore's-bridge... The royal forces stationed there, consisted only of one troop of the 4th Dragoon Guards, and a company of the Wexford militia, who prepared to stop their progress; and for that purpose took possession of the bridge; but the army, on perceiving the rebels planting their cannon on the opposite side, and fording the river in considerable numbers, thought it more prudent to retreat. All the dragoons escaped; but twenty-four of the Wexford militia were taken prisoner; and eight of them being Protestants, were murdered on that and the following day' (Taylor 1829, 141-2).