Brandy Hall Bridge

Brandy Hall Bridge as it is today - start of the widening process

The news that Cork County Council plan to widen Brandy Hall Bridge, Castletownbere, and to widen the existing carriageway as well as removing the severe bend at The Millbrook, has been well received by the people of the town. The existing bridge is a three arch masonry bridge and it is in-tended to leave the existing bridge intact and to construct an extension to the west side of the present structure. The extension will be reinforced concrete to match the existing in form and shape. The new construction will be faced in stone.
The name of the bridge, Brandy Hall, is reminiscent of the age of non-excised wines and spirits, a trade that was carried out from the times of Corca Luidhe, or O’Driscolls, Lords of Beara, as far back as the 8th or 9th century. The news of the re- construction of Brandy Hall Bridge recalls a story of when an attempt was made by the local IRA to blow it up during the Anglo-Irish War. The story was often told by the late Sean T. O’Sullivan, of Droum North, Castletownbere, who at the time was the IRA officer in charge of explosives. He was later a Commandant in the Irish Army. At a meeting of the Battalion Council IRA at Clash, Eyeries, it was decided to demolish the bridge at Brandy Hall, Castletownbere. The bridge was to the east of the town and between two enemy posts. There was the RIC Barracks in the town which housed thirteen RIC and on the eastern side there was the Coast Guard Station (where the present St. Joseph’s Hos-pital is situated) which was manned by a mixture of coast guards and military, about twelve men. The charge to be used for the job was gun cotton. The Battalion Comdt. told Sean T. that all measurements would be got from the Castletownbere Company and that he was not to go near the place until all was ready. At the time Sean T. was working in a temporary assignment at the Allihies Mines, and as this had to do with the making of explosives and was ‘top secret’, he had to keep under cover. While at Allihies he received by despatch the measurements of the bridge, vis total width of road to outside of bridge walls, plus thickness of centre pillar. The correct way to lay a charge to demolish a bridge, Sean T. said, was to multiply the width of the road by the thickness of the pillar. The formula is 34 B.T. in lbs. For instance the road 22 ft. and pier 6 ft. squared and divided by 34 = 99 lbs., according to the measurements he received it showed the thickness of the pillar as 312 feet. Guncotton has to be laid on a plank and tied on. The whole operation had to be prepared a good distance away from the bridge and the loaded plank carried to the site. In this case the plank had to be 22 ft. long which was very awkward to carry. They had long wall brads made beforehand by local blacksmiths. The tamping for that charge was supposed to be one foot square for the whole length. For that they had to have two planks measuring a foot wide each. They drove the brads into the wall about five feet apart and laid one plank at the bottom and one at the outside to form a box. The board with the charge tied on was placed with the gun cotton slabs facing against the pillar and tied all round the arch with marline twine. Then they filled the box from end to end with dry earth and made the whole snug and tight. As the brads had to be driven into the wall with sledges, they stood in great danger of being dis- covered by police or military. It was while Sean T. was tying a thin rope around the pillar to keep the charge firmly against the wall that he discovered that there was something wrong and he said to the Volunteers helping him that their measurements were underestimated. While stretching out his arms at full length to go around the pillar with the cord, he found he could barely reach across the end. According to the measurements he had received, the charge was now more than one third short. The Battalion Adjutant (Michael Crowley) was there and Sean T. told him what he had discovered and asked him for advice. As they wouldn’t have time to take down the whole contraption again, he advised to light it up and take a chance. It went off perfectly and shifted the pillar slightly to the left away from the charge. Sean T. expected this as it was stated in the Engineering Manual that guncotton must be laid correctly according to length and thickness of measurements. The Battalion Comdt. later carried out an inquiry about the bridge and he later told Sean T. that the man sent to get the measurements never went under the ‘arch’ as there was too much water in the river and had only guessed the number of feet in thickness. This failure to blow up the bridge was a big disappointment to the local I.R.A., but as it turned out later the people were thank

(taken from Gerdie Harrington's Beara Notes in Southern Star - 17th March )