INDUSTRIALHERITAGEIRELAND.INFO

The original Bond Bridge was two adjacent bridges dating from the opening of the Royal Canal and Midland Great Western Railway, in 1796 and 1847 respectively. Due solely to lobbying by a vocal group in Maynooth (Bond Bridge Action Group), a local journalist, the largely self appointed community council and a local councillor desperate for votes, the two bridges were unnecessarily demolished and replaced by a modern edifice, wasting €7.9 million of ratepayers money in the process. This same councillor previously arranged for the closing off of a through road in Maynooth in a previous attempt to garner votes, in which the petitions raised in favour of the road closure included the names of local dogs. Part of this process included the building of a road bridge ("X" - see map) which has no purpose. His efforts earned him the grand total of zero first preference votes in the area concerned at the following election.

Undaunted by this result and in conjunction with the efforts of then Finance Minister, Charlie McCreevy in putting pressure Waterways Ireland (WI had opposed the demolition of their bridge), Kildare County Council wasted almost €8m of ratepayers money on this project. Claims by the aforementioned vocal lobby group that the bridge was a death trap were completely unfounded (there were no road traffic incidents on the bridge, fatal or otherwise), and in recent years, traffic light controls protected movements across the bridge.

What should have been the fatal blow to the anti-heritage lobby was the opening of a relief road (from "C" to "C" - see map) providing more direct access to the M4 motorway, thereby relieving traffic on the bridge (curved line "A" to "A" - see map). However, stubbornness and a refusal to lose face are particularly Irish attitudes and the elimination of two historic structures and the building of new roads ("A" - "B" - "A" and "B" - "B" - see map) was necessary to save this particular councillor's face.

Perhaps the most galling part of the whole charade that accompanied the opening of the new bridge was a memorial service held on the bridge for a student who was fatally injured whilst crossing the former bridge as a result of a tree in the adjacent Maynooth College falling on her. Whilst a tree falling has nothing to do with the bridge, this did not stop authority stopping to what is a new, sickening low by engaging in a crude act of spin doctoring to implant in the public mind the impression that the historic Bond Bridges were dangerous.