B123 (Northern Ireland)

Route

Heading east

The B123 is a short link road in southwest Northern Ireland.

The road starts on the A32 on the southern edge of Irvinestown and heads southeast along Old Junction Road, following a similar route to the Bundoran branch of the Great Northern Railway, which ran nearby from 1854 to 1957. The old line is crossed a couple of times but little is visible from the road.

We go through a wood and pass across a stone railway bridge near the former Bundoran Junction station, where the branch line met the main line from Omagh to Enniskillen, and then continue to Kilskeery. After crossing a narrow bridge over the Ballinamallard River the road ends at a T-junction on the B46.

History

The original route of the B123 in 1926

The B123 first appeared in the mid-1920s as a loop via Aghinver to the west of the B82 (now A47) south of Kesh, this section is now the C409. By the 1930 map it had been extended through Irvinestown to the then-A32 (now B46), passing the then-Bundoran Junction of the GNR(I) railway. However, by the 1946 map, the section west of Irvinestown (including the original section), had been downgraded. More recently the middle section of the late 1920s route, the section immediately west of Irvinestown to the A47, was reclassified as the B534.