placenamesBallinamore Bridge
Droichead Bhéal an Átha Móir
The Shiven crossing at Ballinamore Bridge combines practical nineteenth-century engineering with unusually theatrical stonework and traces of a neighbouring estate.
The name
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
- Droichead Bhéal an Átha Móir · Irish · main form · non-validated name
- Ballinamore Bridge · English · main form
Place & story
Nine arches and a battlemented screen
Ballinamore Bridge spans the River Shiven on nine segmental arches built around 1830. Cut limestone surrounds the arches, while triangular cutwaters divide the flow against the piers. Its most unusual feature is the tall screen wall on the eastern side, ornamented with battlements and cylindrical turrets. The architectural inventory identifies evidence that this screen was added above an earlier parapet. A pointed pedestrian gateway beside the southern approach continues the picturesque character of the stonework. [2]
Curraghboy Lodge and Ballinamore Park
Martin Ffrench lived at Curraghboy Lodge beside the bridge in the mid-nineteenth century. The house appears under that name on the first Ordnance Survey map and as Ballinamore Park on the later revision. A ha-ha separated grazing animals from its south-east-facing lawn without interrupting the view. The 2022 heritage audit records surviving traces of this boundary and parts of the stable buildings, although the principal house has gone. These remnants preserve something of the estate’s arrangement around the river crossing. [3]
Three lives remembered at nearby Trihill
A plaque at nearby Trihill commemorates Dean John Crowe, Malachy Geraghty and Lawrence J. Logan. Crowe helped drive the construction of Saints Peter and Paul’s Church in Athlone; Geraghty was a civilian killed at Crossmolina during the Civil War; Logan emigrated to America and became a military officer. Reporting the unveiling, the Roscommon Herald explained that the plaque’s position reflected the locations of their family homes. The memorial brings three different life stories together within the local landscape. [4]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Galway
- Barony
- Killian
- Civil parish
- Killeroran
- Within
- Castleffrench
- Within
- Curraghboy
- Within
- Newtown
- Coordinates
- 53.48148, -8.36155 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 130909 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Ballinamore Bridge. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Ballinamore Bridge, inventory 30404701 · National Inventory of Architectural Heritage
- Heritage Audit of Ballygar, County Galway, Ballinamore Park, page 59 · Zena Hoctor, Ballygar Tidy Towns and Galway County Council, 2022
- Plaque honours three local men who left lasting legacies · Aoife Hynes, Roscommon Herald, 20 June 2026
- Ballinamore Bridge, County Galway illustration: based on a Ballinamore Bridge, County Galway by Sarah777. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2025-01-10. How this page was prepared.