History of Mullingar's Saunders Bridge area

An Cathaoirleach of Westmeath County Council, Cllr Aoife Davitt, recently opened Mullingar’s latest piece of transport infrastructure. Funded by the Department of Transport through the National Transport Authority’s Active Travel Investment Programme, the Saunders Bridge footbridge is a potential lifesaver.

The new walk and cycle crossing next to Saunders Bridge is the third bridge to have been built in the area in the last two centuries. Saunders Bridge is one of the original Royal Canal bridges and dates from 1806. The adjoining railway bridge was built in 1846-47.

Saunders Bridge is situated in the townland of Ballinderry and is close to the boundary with the townlands of Ardmore and Boardstown. Ballinderry is also referred to as Lis an Doire, ‘Fort of the Oak Wood’ in some accounts.

There are a number of raths or ringforts in the area which date back to the first millennium AD. Two raths in the townland of Ardmore were said to have been given to the monastery of Lynn by the Clann Cholmain kings who ruled over much of the midlands from the 7th to the 12th centuries.

Until the 1730s the main Mullingar to Kinnegad and Dublin road ran along what is now the Ballinderry, Russellstown road just west of the bridge.

Work on building the Royal Canal from Dublin to the Shannon began in 1790 and it had reached Kilcock by 1796. War, financial difficulties and challenging terrain slowed progress towards Westmeath, but the canal eventually reached Mullingar in 1806.

Ahead of the arrival of the canal, a number of bridges were built in the Mullingar area. The canal bridges across the country were often “proudly named showpieces of master craftsmen”. Saunders Bridge was probably named after the engineer who built it and is an important part of the industrial and transport heritage of Mullingar.

On December 15, 1806, the first passenger boat to reach Mullingar was towed by horses along the path under Saunders Bridge. The boat was called ‘Countess of Granard’ and carried “a number of passengers of distinction”.

The Canal Harbour was a short distance from Saunders Bridge at a place called Piper’s Boreen. There the crew and passengers of the ‘Countess’ were serenaded by the Band of the Sligo Militia and local musicians. Piper’s Boreen led to Millmount Road (then a country lane) and to an area known by the mysterious name of Wrangleboro, which stretched from what is now Newlands to Austin Friars Street.

Many musicians lived in the area and they would play for the passengers embarking and disembarking at the harbour. Local dancers also entertained the passengers-dancing “even on the Sabbath”.

The Canal Harbour moved from Piper’s Boreen to its present location in 1808, but passenger boats continued to use the Boreen Harbour until 1825.

Thousands of people travelled under Saunders Bridge over the next 40 years. The canal became “the lifeline of the town, the barges bringing passengers, fuel, food, drink and everything else from Dublin”.

About 17 different types of goods were transported along the canal, including timber, bricks, butter and beer. Building materials for many landmark 19th century Mullingar buildings, including the courthouse, the military barracks and All Saints, Church were conveyed to the town on the trade boats.

The journey time from Dublin to Saunders Bridge was about 13 hours. Faster “fly boats” were able to do it in eight hours from the 1830s.

In the year 1845, “railway mania” gripped Ireland and Britain, and an act of parliament created the Midland Great Western Railway Company and authorised the building of a railway line from the Broadstone in Dublin to Athlone and Galway via Mullingar.

Work began in January 1846 and by August of that year, it was reported that 40 labourers were employed in sinking the foundations for a second bridge beside Saunders Bridge. Their wages were fixed at 12 shillings per week for first class labourers and 9 shillings per week for second class. The work was completed by mid-1847.

The owner of Millmount House at the west side of the bridge was reported “to be very unsettled with the Railway Company and who could blame him? The railway line was to run along several perches of his avenue”.

The first train from Dublin to Mullingar ran under the new Saunders rail bridge on October 3, 1848. Soon there were four trains each way daily. The number of trains increased as the railway extended to Athlone and Galway in 1851, and a second line to Longford and Sligo opened in 1855.

In 1848, a racecourse opened close to Saunders Bridge at Newtown. Special trains brought racegoers from Dublin and stopped at Saunders Bridge, from where, according to the railway company, it was “only a three minute walk to the racecourse”.

The racecourse was located where Newtown Lawns and New Ballinderry Cottages are now and the course was two miles around with 17 jumps. There was a grandstand which could hold 500 people and a refreshments bar under the stand.

For the May races in 1850, the Midland Great Western Company offered free return tickets to all parties coming from Dublin to the Races by the 11.00hrs trains on Monday and Tuesday, and trains arrived at Saunders Bridge half an hour before the first race.

The racecourse moved to Newbrook in 1852.

With the coming of the railway, passenger boats ceased to run on the Royal Canal from November 1848, but freight boats continued for another century.

Although the canal infrastructure deteriorated, there were still four large boats going under the bridge weekly up to the 1920s. The last trade boat ran in 1951.

The canal was closed in 1961 and was not reopened as far as Mullingar for boats until 1990. A canal rally took place that year between Saunders Bridge and the Dublin Bridge. In 1999, it became possible to travel through Mullingar by boat for the first time since the 1960s and with the development of the Royal Canal Greenway, the Saunders Bridge area has become a pleasant spot for walkers, runners, cyclists, anglers and the occasional boater.

The area around Saunders Bridge remained largely rural until the late 20th century. Ardmore Road began to be developed as a connecting road between Ballinderry and the Dublin Road in the 18th century, following the opening of the new Mullingar, Kinnegad turnpike road in 1733. It was known as the “Back Road” or “Harry Duffy’s Road”. Harry Duffy was a gatekeeper at the turnpike road toll gate at the Dublin Road end of Ardmore Road.

When Mullingar Town Commission was set up in 1856, the south-eastern boundary of the Mullingar urban area ran across the Ardmore Road close to Saunders Bridge at the boundary between Ballinderry and Ardmore townlands.

Millmount House beside Saunders Bridge dates to around 1800 and appears to have been a schoolhouse in the 1820s/30s. Now set for re-development, the building has been described as making “a strong positive contribution to the architectural heritage of Mullingar”.

In 1922 a number of ex-servicemen’s houses were built for local veterans of WWI on lands owned by the Downes family along the Ballinderry Road and were called New Ballinderry Cottages. Since the 1970s, massive housing developments in Ballinderry and along the Ardmore Road have transformed country roads into high density population centres.

The new foot and cycle crossing is a vital safety measure for pedestrians and cyclists as the Saunders Bridge area becomes an increasingly urbanised part of the ever expanding town of Mullingar.