Parnell's Bridge, Tollymore Park, Newcastle, Co Down

Parnell's Bridge is a single-span rubble-built bridge of 1774, carrying a drive over the Shimna River as it flows through Tollymore Park, County Down. It sits in the north-west corner of the park.

The bridge is constructed from rubble stonework and has a relatively large, single semicircular arch with dressed voussoirs. The parapets are topped with rough stone coping and are splayed at the southern end. In fairly recent years the eastern parapet on the northern side has been reconstructed, and part of the western parapet on the same side has been dismantled. Tie rods have been inserted at both the northern and southern ends to stabilise the structure. Both faces of the bridge are partly covered in ivy growth. A date stone of 1774 is reportedly incorporated into the structure, though surveyors were unable to locate it at the time of recording. The bridge is marked on both the 1834 and 1859 Ordnance Survey maps as "Parnell's Bridge."

The bridge is named after Sir John Parnell (1744–1801), the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer and a personal friend of the 2nd Earl of Clanbrassil, on whose estate it was built.

Tollymore Park has a long and layered history. In the late medieval period, the land was under the lordship of the Magennis family of Upper Iveagh. In 1611, Brian MacHugh Magennis received a royal grant of seven and a half townlands in the area from King James I, and the estate remained in the Magennis male line until around 1685, when Bernard Magennis died without children. The estate passed to his sister Ellen, who was married to William Hamilton, and from her to their son James. That James's son — also named James, who inherited the estate in 1701 — was created Viscount Limerick in 1719 and Earl of Clanbrassil (of the second creation) in 1728.

This James, commonly remembered by his earlier title of Lord Limerick, began developing Tollymore as a naturalistic landscape demesne around 1720. He enclosed much of the land as a deer park, undertook large-scale tree planting, built a hunting lodge and the "Old Bridge," and rebuilt the parish church at Bryansford — the small estate village to the north of the park, named after his ancestor Brian Magennis. Around 1750 he began construction of a larger house, probably with design advice from the English architect Thomas Wright, who visited Ireland in 1746–47 and stayed at "Tullymoor Park" in September 1746. Dr. Pococke, writing in his Tour of Ireland in 1752, noted that Lord Limerick had completed two rooms of his new "pretty lodge" by that date and had also built "a thatch'd open place to dine in" on the south side of the Shimna River. Just to the north of the house, the "Clanbrassil" Barn was added in 1757, with the Horn Bridge built around the same time to the south. Lord Limerick died in 1758 and was succeeded by his son, also named James, who extended the house and continued his father's tree-planting programme.

During the 1780s, the 2nd Earl erected the Barbican gate at the eastern entrance to the park, the gothick gate at the Bryansford entrance, the hermitage, gothick follies, a steward's lodge on the Hilltown Road, and a number of bridges within the park — including Ivy Bridge, Parnell's Bridge, and Foley's Bridge, the last named after his wife Grace Foley. These additions, which also appear to reflect the influence of Thomas Wright, together with the extensive planting, made Tollymore one of the most celebrated estates in Ireland. Bernard Scalé's 1777 map of the park conveys the picturesque quality of the demesne at this time, with a rolling landscape of planting, meadows, rivers, streams, and woodland walks. An advertisement in the Belfast News-Letter of 26 April 1785 offering lodgings in Bryansford praised the "most pleasing prospect of the Right Hon. Earl of Clanbrassil's much admired demesne, which is beautiful to the sight and extensive to the bounds," and noted the healthy air and good grazing that made the area popular with visitors seeking recovery from ill health.

James, 2nd Viscount Limerick and 2nd Earl of Clanbrassil, died without issue in 1798, and the park passed to his sister Anne, wife of Robert Jocelyn, 1st Earl of Roden. Their son Robert, 2nd Earl of Roden, inherited the estate in 1802 and built the Bryansford and Barbican gate lodges (the latter now demolished). He also erected an obelisk monument to the east of the house in memory of his second son James, who died an untimely death in 1812. The 2nd Earl and his successor, the 3rd Earl, further developed Bryansford village, making it, in contemporary descriptions, "a pleasing place of residence for those persons that like a quiet retreat." A Roman Catholic church was built at the eastern edge of the village in 1820, school houses in 1823 and 1826, and labourers' dwellings and the large dower house known as "The Nest" were added around the same time. The 3rd Earl also constructed a water-powered saw mill within the demesne, added another small lodge to the east in 1865, and enlarged Tollymore House by adding an extra storey to the wings and a tall French château-style roof — considered somewhat incongruous — to the original central block.

Tollymore Park remained in the hands of the Roden family until 1930, when the 8th Earl sold two-thirds of the land to the Ministry of Agriculture for afforestation. The remaining third was acquired by the Ministry in 1940, and during the Second World War Tollymore House and part of the grounds were used by the Army. After the war the house fell into disrepair and was demolished by Lord Roden in 1952. In 1955 Tollymore became the first state forest in the region to be designated a Forest Park and was opened to the public. Although the house itself is gone, most of the park's 18th- and early 19th-century gates, bridges, and lodges have survived, including Parnell's Bridge.