But the North Bridge, spanning the River Loobagh at Abbeyfarm, carries with it the possibility of something older buried within its fabric, and a paper trail that reaches back to a map drawn around 1600, now held in Trinity College Dublin (MS 1209/62). On that map, a multi-arched stone bridge is clearly shown crossing the Loobagh to the west of Kilmallock Mill, sitting astride a route the cartographer labelled, with pleasing directness, as 'The high way to Limericke'.

The present structure was built around 1800 and rebuilt again in 1916, and its construction history is readable in its materials. The National Inventory of Architectural Heritage describes random coursed rubble limestone walls with cast-iron ties, dressed voussoirs (the wedge-shaped stones forming the curved arches) to round-headed arches, and V-cutwaters to the north elevation. V-cutwaters are the pointed projections built into a bridge's piers to split the current and reduce pressure on the structure. There is also an inscribed limestone plaque set into the west parapet wall, which the NIAH notes is of some archaeological significance. Given that the road has long served as the main route north from Kilmallock, and given the evidence of the c. 1600 map, it is considered plausible that an earlier bridge occupied the same crossing, and that some of that earlier fabric may survive within what visitors see today.

The bridge sits just outside Kilmallock, a town with a well-preserved medieval core, so it is easy to reach on foot or by car. The structure itself is modest in scale and unremarkable at a glance, which is part of what makes it worth pausing at. Look to the west parapet wall for the limestone plaque, and notice the variation in the arches, one of which has a square head with a concrete lintel to the south, a repair that sits visibly apart from the older stonework. The Loobagh below is not a dramatic river, but the combination of moving water, worn limestone, and the knowledge that this crossing may have been in use since at least the medieval period gives the place a quiet weight.