The inscription states that Patrick Dowlye built the bridge at his own expense in 1647, a year that falls squarely within the upheaval of the Confederate Ireland period, when large-scale private investment in civil infrastructure was far from the norm. The bridge carries a road northwest to southeast, giving access to the Jenkinstown House demesne, and its survival across nearly four centuries, including its legible dedication stone, makes it a quietly remarkable piece of evidence about local patronage and ambition in Kilkenny.

The bridge appears to be the very structure shown on the Down Survey barony map of Fassadining and the parish of Mayne, produced between 1655 and 1656 as part of William Petty's vast project to map forfeited Irish lands following the Cromwellian settlement. If the identification is correct, the bridge was already old enough to be considered a landmark within a decade of its construction. The structure itself is Classical in style, built from random squared rubble limestone with triangular cutwater projections to the central pier, the cutwater being a wedge-shaped feature designed to split the river current and reduce pressure on the masonry. A cut-limestone stringcourse runs along the parapet, which is balustraded. The original arch is segmental, with rubble limestone voussoirs, the wedge-shaped stones that form the curve of the arch. Around 1825 the bridge was widened, and the additional arch was finished with cut-limestone voussoirs and squared rubble limestone soffits, the two phases of construction still distinguishable in the stonework. By the time the first Ordnance Survey six-inch map was produced in 1839 it was recorded as Jenkinstown Bridge, though a later revision in 1946 to 1947 called it Tower Bridge, a name that does not appear to have stuck.