BALLYMORE EUSTACE

TROUT AND SALMON ANGLERS’ ASSOCIATION

 HISTORY 1974 - 2007

COMPLIED BY THOMAS DEEGAN     November 2007
Cover Photographs.

Top. The Liffey Bridge at Ballymore Eustace
“Six-arch rubble stone hump back road bridge over river, c.1850, with cut-stone quoins to piers to south-west, triangular cut-waters to north east, cut stone voussoirs and cut-stone coping to parapet walls.”
“The construction of the arches that have retained their original shape is of technical and engineering merit.  The bridge exhibits good quality stone masonry and fine, crisp joints.  The bridge is of considerable historical and social significance as a reminder of the road network development in Ireland in the mid nineteenth century.” (National Inventory of Architectural Heritage)

Bottom, The Railway Bridge (Harristown Railway Liffey Viaduct) across the Liffey. 
“The building of the railway brought over 1200 men working with pick-and-shovel into the area.  They faced their most difficult tasks in the Brannockstown area – crossing the Liffey and cutting through the rocky vale at Moorhill.
The 300 foot long bridge was built during the winter of 1883/84.  Although now tamed by the Poulaphouca dams the Liffey was then a vigorous river and a dangerous one in winter floods.”
Extract from a delightful article entitled “Harristown’s Bridges and its Railway” by Liam Kenny which was published in a book “Waters Under the Bridge” by Robert Dunlop. 
Waters Under the Bridge tells the romantic story of John Ruskin the English poet and Rose La Touche of Harristown (his “wild Rose of Kildare”) and was published in 1988 to mark the 200th anniversary of the erection of the Liffey Bridge at Carnalway in 1788 by the first John La Touche of Harristown.