Bridge, Grange Lower, Co. Limerick
Co. Limerick |
Bridges & Crossings
There is a particular kind of melancholy in a label that outlives its subject.
At Grange Lower in County Limerick, a bridge crosses the water at a spot that once warranted the attention of Samuel Lewis, the prolific topographer whose multi-volume survey of Ireland, published in 1837, remains one of the most reliable gazetteers of the pre-Famine landscape. Lewis saw fit to single out this crossing, noting it as "a curious old bridge", a phrase that implies something visually distinctive, possibly irregular in construction or unusual in form. Whatever it was that caught his eye, it is gone.
Lewis's entry dates the original structure to at least the early nineteenth century, and his language suggests it may have been considerably older. His 1837 survey, the Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, was compiled through a combination of correspondence, local enquiry, and direct observation, and Lewis was not in the habit of applying the word "curious" loosely. The description implies a structure with some claim on the attention, perhaps an awkward alignment, an unusual number of arches, or stonework that belonged to an earlier period of construction. The current bridge, by contrast, is of recent construction, and whatever character the earlier crossing possessed has not carried over.
The site sits within Grange Lower townland, and the bridge itself is straightforward enough to locate along the local road network in that part of County Limerick. Visitors with an interest in the documentary record rather than surviving fabric may find some quiet interest in standing at a place that Lewis considered worth remarking upon, even if the physical evidence that prompted his observation no longer exists. The surrounding landscape of lowland Limerick is agricultural and undemonstrative, and the crossing today functions simply as a crossing. What remains is primarily the gap between a nineteenth-century note and the present view.