The viaduct was designed by the Irish civil engineer Sir John Benjamin Macneill using new mathematical stress analysis developed just a few years before by William Bindon Blood at Queen's College, Galway.

[citation needed] 2005 marked the 150th anniversary of the viaduct, and Iarnród Éireann and the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland ran a special service operated by a steam locomotive between Drogheda railway station and Dundalk.

This allowed trains to continue running throughout the renewal process; however, the new bridge was no longer wide enough to carry two tracks.

[5] Over €6.1m was awarded for the refurbishment of the Boyne Viaduct financed through the European Union’s INTERREG IVA Programme.

The project involved several essential refurbishment activities, including steel repairs and full repainting, renewal of work over the viaduct, waterproofing of the deck, and installation of a new drainage system.