Bridge, Brickeen Island, Co. Kerry

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Bridges & Crossings

Bridge, Brickeen Island, Co. Kerry

A small humpback bridge connecting a landed estate to a sliver of island is an unusual thing to find, and this one occupies a particularly odd position in the landscape, caught between two of Killarney's most famous lakes.

Brickeen Bridge spans the narrow channel separating Lough Leane from Muckross Lake, carrying a traveller from the grounds of Muckross demesne onto Brickeen Island itself, a stepping stone in the water rather than a true destination. It was originally built as a road bridge, though the road it once served has long since quietened into a walking path within Killarney National Park.

The bridge is a single-arch structure, built from random rubble sandstone, the kind of uncoursed stonework common to Irish vernacular construction where blocks are laid as they come rather than cut to uniform shapes. Its arch is pointed rather than semicircular, with voussoirs, the wedge-shaped stones that form the curve of an arch and lock it in compression, described as long and roughly dressed, giving the whole thing a slightly austere, purposeful look. The span runs to approximately eight metres, and the bridge measures 5.4 metres in width along its east-west axis. Sloping buttresses and terraced walls rise on both the upstream and downstream faces, bracing the structure against the lateral pressure of water and adding a modest visual weight to something that might otherwise seem slight.

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Pete F
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