The bridge at Ballincurrig over the Templebodan river is not a grand structure, but it rewards a moment's attention. Measuring 5.3 metres in width, it carries the road on two semicircular arches built from roughly cut voussoirs, the wedge-shaped stones that lock an arch into place and transfer its load outward to the piers below. What distinguishes it from a purely functional crossing are the breakwaters on the upstream side, pointed in profile and rising to the full height of the bridge rather than stopping partway up as they do on many later, more standardised examples. That detail speaks to an older tradition of bridge-building, one in which the upstream face was treated as a serious engineering problem rather than an afterthought.

The pointed breakwater form was a practical response to the behaviour of rivers in spate. By presenting a sharp edge to the current, the breakwater splits the flow and reduces the pressure on the piers, protecting the masonry from the scouring and undermining that would otherwise shorten a bridge's life considerably. Extending them to full height also offered some protection against floating debris carried down in flood conditions. The use of roughly cut rather than finely dressed stone in the voussoirs suggests this was a working bridge built to last rather than to impress, the kind of modest infrastructure that kept rural Cork connected across its network of small rivers and streams.