Bridge, Mangerton, Co. Kerry

Co. Kerry |

Bridges & Crossings

Bridge, Mangerton, Co. Kerry

A single stone arch carries a narrow road across the Owbeg River on the slopes of Mangerton Mountain, and it is the kind of structure that most people cross without a second thought.

That slight inattention is part of what makes it worth pausing over. The bridge is only 4.1 metres wide, its long axis running roughly north to south, and its proportions belong entirely to the unhurried pace of mid to late nineteenth-century road-making in rural Kerry.

The bridge is built of random rubble sandstone, the local material shaped and fitted without the precision of cut ashlar. Its single segmental arch, a shallow curve rather than a full semicircle, spans approximately 12 metres across the river. The voussoirs, the wedge-shaped stones that lock an arch together and transfer its load outward to the abutments, are only roughly shaped here, giving the whole structure an unpolished, workmanlike quality that reflects how such bridges were typically put together in this part of Ireland during the Victorian period. The parapets project very slightly beyond the body of the bridge, a small detail that is actually a common feature of the era, helping to define the edge of the roadway. Some of the original upright stone coping along the parapets has since been replaced with concrete, and the upstream face has been partially encased in concrete on either side of the arch, repairs that speak to the bridge still being in active use rather than preserved as a relic.

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Pete F
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