Bridge, Ballindarra, Co. Offaly

Look closely and the semicircular arches of different voussoirs, the wedge-shaped stones that form an arch, tell a quiet story of alteration and rebuilding across several centuries. The bridge stretches 31 metres in length and just over five metres in width, its five segmental arches rising gradually in height towards the centre in the way that older Irish river crossings often do, compensating for the curve of the water below.

By the time of the Civil Survey of 1654 to 1656, the crossing was already being referred to as the 'old bridge of Beallanadarragh', which suggests its origins predate even that mid-seventeenth century record by some considerable margin. The survey, a detailed land valuation compiled after the Cromwellian conquest, was not in the habit of calling things old without reason. The bridge sits alongside a castle site and a mill to the north on the western bank, a clustering of features that points to this having been a place of some local importance, a crossing point that shaped settlement around it rather than simply serving it. The roughly cut stone voussoirs show slight evidence of hammer dressing, and the differences between the upstream and downstream arches suggest the bridge was likely widened during the nineteenth century, a common enough intervention as cart traffic grew heavier and roads were improved across Ireland. Four cutwaters, the pointed projections built into the piers to divide the current and protect the structure, originally supported four pedestrian refuges, small recessed platforms where a person on foot could step aside to let a vehicle pass. Three of those refuges survive intact, each measuring roughly two and a half metres wide and one and a half metres deep.