Bridge, Ballymaquirk, Co. Cork

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Bridges & Crossings

Bridge, Ballymaquirk, Co. Cork

Set into the eastern wall of a nineteenth-century road bridge over the River Blackwater in north Cork, a small date plaque records two things with quiet precision: a name and a year.

"Martin Forrest / Contractor / 1866." It is the kind of detail that usually disappears into the stonework of infrastructure, uncelebrated and largely unread, yet here it has survived long enough to anchor the whole structure to a specific moment and a specific person.

The bridge itself carries a road on a north-south axis across the Blackwater, measuring 8.7 metres in width. It was built using roughly faced coursed limestone and sandstone, with ashlar limestone, stone dressed to a smooth and precise finish, reserved for the more decorative elements. Three wide segmental arches span the river, each one framed by raised voussoirs, the wedge-shaped stones that lock an arch together, with chamfered edges that catch the light at an angle. A string course, a narrow projecting horizontal band of stone, runs along the face of the bridge above the arches, giving the whole thing a composed, considered look despite the roughness of much of the material. The rounded cutwaters, the pointed or curved projections on the piers that divide the current and protect the structure from the force of the river, are a practical feature common to bridges of this period, and the piered abutments at either end anchor the whole span firmly into the riverbanks. Rough-finished limestone blocks form the coping along the top of the parapet, a finishing touch that is functional rather than ornamental.

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