It names an architect, two overseers, and notes that the structure was erected "by presentment", meaning it was funded through the grand jury system, the mechanism by which Irish counties levied local taxes for public works before the reforms of the 1830s brought county councils into being. That a routine rural river crossing should wear its origins so explicitly in stone is what sets it apart.

The bridge at Ballykenly was completed in 1820 to a design by John Hargraves, with John Hyde and Thomas Montgomery serving as overseers of the work. It carries a road on a slight hump across the Funshion, running on a north-east to south-west axis and measuring just over seven metres in width. The construction is random-rubble limestone with ashlar dressing at the details, a practical combination common to the period: rougher stone for the bulk of the structure, more carefully cut stone where precision mattered. Five semicircular arches carry the roadway, rising gradually toward the centre, where the main span reaches roughly 5.6 metres. A string course, a narrow projecting band of masonry, runs horizontally above the arch line, giving the elevation a horizontal rhythm. On the upstream side, bluntly pointed cutwaters help divide the current around each pier; on the downstream face, the projections are shallower and flat-fronted. Vertical stone coping runs along the top of the parapet walls on either side.