Survey Data
Reg No
22903205
Rating
Regional
Categories of Special Interest
Architectural, Historical, Social, Technical
Original Use
Bridge
Date
1920 - 1925
Coordinates
233735, 96055
Date Recorded
05/01/2004
Date Updated
--/--/--
Description
Four-span railway viaduct over river, built 1923, incorporating fabric of earlier viaduct, opened 1878, on site. Decommissioned, 1982. Now disused. Unpainted mass-concrete tapered pylon piers with coping over. Broken coursed squared rubble limestone abutment walls continuing into parapets on stringcourses having cut-stone coping. Series of four flat cast-iron spans on cast-iron girders and trusses, with sections of iron railings to parapets. Sited spanning Dalligan River valley with forested banks to valley.
Appraisal
A graceful viaduct making a dramatic visual statement in the landscape, forming an artificial horizon spanning the Dalligan River valley. The construction of the present viaduct identifies the civil engineering heritage importance of the site, employing innovative materials including mass-concrete and cast-iron. The remains of an earlier viaduct on site are of importance as evidence of the introduction of the railway network to the locality by the Fishguard and Rosslare Railways and Harbours Company in the late nineteenth century as part of the development of the Great Southern Railway line. Both structures are of additional significance in the locality as the ‘before’ and ‘after’ viaducts following an episode relating to the Civil War movement (1919 – 1922) in the county.