Piers of Br. — Lucan AND Pettycanon,laraghcon

One of three bridges spanning the River Liffey in Lucan. The present Lucan Bridge (DU019-019006-) located 180m upstream to E was built in 1814 to replace this 18th-century bridge which was built to replace the medieval bridge (DU017-016----) located 240m to the W. On the 1837 ed. OSi 6-inch map the bridge site is annotated 'Piers of Br.' where it shown immediately to the N of the Infant School on the S bank of the Liffey. The 18th-century bridge was described by Simington and O'Keeffe (1991, 270) as; 'The first Dublin to Kinnegad Turnpike Act (5 Geo. II c.16) was passed in 1731. The first sentence of it gives a clue to the line of the principal road to the west at the time as it mentions "the road leading from the city of Dublin through the towns of Kilmainham, Is land-bridge, Chappel-izod, Palmerstown, Lucan, Leixlip, Monouth, Kilcock, Cloncurry and states it was in a ruinous and bad condition. Section 20 states that "the road leading from the bridge at Lucan by the causeway of St Katherine's to the town of Leixlip by the sudden and frequent overflowing of the river Liffey over the said causeway is dangerous to passengers, several persons having lost their lives and many cattle having been drowned, and it is almost impractical to raise and make the same safe and commodious, and by the building of a bridge over the river in a convenient place, and turning the road another and shorter way the like accidents will for the time to come be prevented." The act then empowers the trustees to build a bridge of stone and lime in some convenient place over the Liffey and make a new road through Lucan and the lands of Cooltreeny leading to such bridge. Among the 100 or more trustees named in the 1731 act there are two Agmondisham Veseys, father and son. The Veseys had come into the Lucan estate when the father married a niece of Patrick Sarsfield in the 1720s. The importance of Lucan Bridge diminished with the building of the Leixlip road and bridge. Dean Swift's couplet fills the gap: "Agmondisham Vesey out of great bounty/ Built the bridge at the expense of the county.": this is generally accepted as relating to the Lucan bridge over the Liffey. Swift, who probably composed the couplet sometime in the 1730s, was one of the trustees named in the Blackbull-Trim-Athboy Turnpike Act, 1731 and was no doubt familiar with road financing procedures. This evidence suggests that a bridge was built at Lucan in the 1730s. Positive evidence of a new bridge is given in an act 11 & 12 Geo. III c. 35 (1771-2) which prescribed: Whereas a new bridge has been built at the expense of the county of Dublin over the river Liffey near the village of Lucan; and whereas Agmondisham Vesey esquire has consented and undertaken that the road from the said new bridge shall be carried without expense to the county through his estate in a straight line from the said bridge to Thomas Lynch's house where it will intersect the turnpike road which will be considerably shortened thereby be it enacted by the King's Majestie by the Lords . .. that as soon as the said new road be finished it may be lawful to the said Agmondisham Vesey to stop and inclose that part of the old road which lies west of the little river called the Griffeen. Examination of the 1844 O.S. six-inch map provided the necessary clues to piece together the evidence. This map shows the remnants of an abutment and two piers. Evidently the middle bridge mentioned in the Vesey act was swept away in the floods of 1784 or 1786.' Compiled by: Caimin O'Brien Date of upload: 8 May 2023