The paired timber bridges offer a lens on Restoration Ireland: they improved movement, trade and Dublin’s urban geography, yet their names celebrated the Butler family whose authority depended on local networks and Whitehall. This combination suggests that infrastructure could serve practical needs while displaying dynastic power in a kingdom without a sitting parliament. The article places these improvements beside Catholic exclusion, land disputes and livelihoods, complicating any narrative of stability or progress. How should we interpret Ormond and Arran Bridges: chiefly as commercial improvements, as instruments of political symbolism, or as evidence that both functions were inseparable in 1682 Dublin?