Leighlinbridge
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Leighlinbridge Leithghlinn an Droichid
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The Black Castle on the River Barrow in Leighlinbridge
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 Leighlinbridge
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| Coordinates: 52°44′11″N 6°58′21″W / 52.7364°N 6.9725°WCoordinates: 52°44′11″N 6°58′21″W / 52.7364°N 6.9725°W | |
| Country | Ireland |
| Province | Leinster |
| County | County Carlow |
| Elevation | 41 m (135 ft) |
| Population (2002) | |
| • Urban | 646 |
| • Rural | 1,316 |
| Time zone | WET (UTC+0) |
| • Summer (DST) | IST (WEST) (UTC-1) |
| Irish Grid Reference | S694654 |
Leighlinbridge (/ˈlɔːxlᵻn.brɪdʒ/; Irish: Leithghlinn an Droichid, meaning "half-glen or grey glen of the bridge") is a small town on the River Barrow in County Carlow, Ireland. The N9 National primary route once passed through the village, which was by-passed in the 1980s. It now lies on the R705 regional road.
It covers the townlands of Leighlin (east bank of the river) and Ballyknockan (west bank). The village features narrow winding streets, grey limestone malthouses and castle ruins overlooking a 14th-century bridge across the River Barrow, reputedly one of the oldest functioning bridges in Europe. Leighlinbridge has won many environmental awards, including county winner in the National Tidy Towns Competition, first in the Barrow Awards, overall national winner in Ireland's Green Town 2000, and represented Ireland in the European "Entente Florale" competition in 2001.
On the night of 28 November 1999, a brilliant exploding fireball was observed over Carlow town, which lasted for several seconds before fading and was accompanied by a loud detonation. An elderly lady in Leighlinbridge recovered a fusion crusted individual meteoritic rock on 12 December 1999, and later two more specimens were found. It is now officially called the "Leighlinbridge" by the International Meteorite Nomenclature Committee. The meteorites, totalling 271.4 grams in weight, were at the time the first recovered in Ireland since 1865 and are the first fallen rocks found anywhere in Ireland or Britain since 1991. The previous find in Ireland was the Dundrum meteorite which was found near Dundrum, County Tipperary.
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