The limestone bridge spanning the Blackwater at Fermoy is the town’s best known landmark. Consisting of seven arches, it was built in 1864/’ 65 by the Cork County Grand Jury and was on the main Cork to Dublin road until the MS by-passed Fermoy in 2006.
Fermoy was an important fording point on the Blackwater between the 13th and 15th centuries when the Cistercians operated a ferry and managed a ford across the river, west of the present bridge.
The first bridge here was built in 1626 by Richard Boyle, Great Earl of Cork. This was washed away by a flood in 1628. Fermoy remained without a bridge until the Great Earl’s son, the scientist Robert Boyle, spent £1,500 on building a new limestone bridge in 1687. This bridge was refurbished and widened by John Anderson, sometime around 1810.
Plaques on the centre of the present bridge states ‘Rebuilt 1864 and 1865, XXVIII and XXIX Victoria. A. Oliver Lyons engineer, Joshua Hargrave, contractor’. The bridge was renamed ‘Thomas Kent Bridge’ in 2015.