Bellarush Bridge, Annagh, Co. Sligo

It does not appear on the Down Survey barony map of 1655 to 1656, which mapped much of Ireland's land ownership in considerable detail, and it has never been formally included in the county's statutory records of monuments. Yet it is almost certainly one of the oldest bridges still standing in County Sligo, possibly older than anything else of its kind in the region.

The antiquarian W.G. Wood-Martin noted in 1892 that Bellarush and Drumcliff were the oldest surviving bridges in the county, remarking that their narrow arches and style of masonry indicated they had been long in existence, though he could assign no date to either. The bridge does appear on a map surveyed in 1777 by Taylor and Skinner, which at least establishes it was standing then. More recently, a detailed structural survey carried out by conservation engineer Gary Salter on behalf of Sligo County Council concluded that the original bridge, roughly fifteen feet wide, displays the proportions, materials, and workmanship characteristic of construction somewhere between 1200 and 1600 AD. A later widening, which roughly doubled that original width, still appears to pre-date 1840. Wood-Martin's framing is telling: he considered the bridge at Bellarush to be older than Sligo's so-called New Bridge, now known as Markievicz Bridge, which was built in 1680, placing Bellarush firmly in the pre-1700 category at the very latest.

The bridge's construction repays a closer look. The three segmental arches, in which the curve is shallower than a full semicircle, are built with rough voussoirs, the wedge-shaped stones that distribute load through an arch. The corbels used to support the temporary wooden centering during construction are still visible on the structure. The piers are notably thick and are fitted with cutwaters, the pointed projections designed to split the river's current and reduce pressure on the stonework. On the upstream face the dressing of the stone is noticeably more finished, suggesting that this side received more care, or perhaps more subsequent attention. Narrow lintelled openings on the north-east side and an arched opening on the south-west riverbank add further texture to a structure that, despite its age and likely significance, remains largely unheralded.