Pile Bridge

Triple-span iron beam viaduct, built c.1850, carrying Dundalk & Enniskillen Branch of the former Ulster Railway over public road, superstructure and railway track now removed. Remains of viaduct comprise four pairs of cast-iron round-plan columns with concrete cores and round rivets. End columns sunk into earthen embankments. Columns to south-east of road braced with horizontal and diagonal iron I-bar girders. Columns to north-west of road, now destroyed, exposing cast-iron and concrete infill. Fluted band to top of pairs to south-east and south-west of road.

The Dundalk-Enniskillen Branch of the Ulster Railway (later subsumed into the Great Northern Railway) opened on 17th July 1854, and was an important transport link between Louth, Monaghan and Fermanagh. The deck of this triple-span metal beam bridge was lifted when the line closed in 1959 and only its supporting columns survive. The widespread nature of the railway network in this area is indicative of the prevalence of industry in the locality. This bridge is representative of the skill in engineering and ironworking in the nineteenth century, with cast-iron pairs of columns of varying heights carrying a triple-span beam bridge over a public road. It is a particularly interesting structure due to its industrial use of cast-iron and concrete. Now isolated in a pasture field, it is an eye-catching and aesthetically-pleasing structure, which serves a physical reminder of the extent and social and industrial importance of the railway network at the turn of the century.