Site of Old Bridge, Attybrick, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Bridges & Crossings
On the flood plain of the Multeen river in County Tipperary, there is a crossing point that no longer has anything to cross.
A bridge once stood here, substantial enough to anchor a townland boundary and earn its own named entry on the Ordnance Survey's six-inch map of 1840, where it appears simply as "Site of Old Br." By the time the cartographers were noting it, the structure was already gone, reduced to a designation rather than a description.
The 1840 OS six-inch maps were produced during the first great national survey of Ireland, a project that recorded not only what existed but what had recently ceased to exist, giving later generations a layered picture of a landscape in transition. At Attybrick, that record is almost all that remains. The bridge is not visible at ground level today. The townland boundary that once ran to the northeast and southwest of the river, presumably following or anchoring to the crossing point, has since been removed as well. What the site offers instead is a quiet cluster of willow trees on improved pasture, and a cattle watering point roughly eight metres to the south-southeast, beside which some large loose boulders sit. Whether those boulders are remnants of the bridge's fabric or simply fieldstone cleared from the surrounding land is not recorded, but their presence near the old crossing is at least suggestive.