The history of roads

briany

I don't mean this in a general sense, but I'm more curious about the history of specific roads like the r127, and am wondering what databases exist, online or offline, to chart their establishment or the first recording of their existence. Some roads which are now minor, might have been major at one time, and vice versa, but what's more interesting is getting a picture of how people would have moved around in times past vs. now and the changing connections between towns and villages.

brocbrocach

County records often have accounts of costs and affected persons associated with building or upgrading works on roads. They'd often impose a levy on local landowners.

kildarejohn

At least part of the R127 - road to Lusk - appears on Taylor & Skinners map of 1777 which is available here Work | Taylor and Skinner’s maps of the roads of Ireland, surveyed 1777 | ID: mg74qp068 | Digital Collections (tcd.ie)

Mick Tator

Other than the OSI and UCD websites I’m not aware of any general Irish ‘roads-specific site’. The OSI site has a ‘slider’ that shows the changes. Also the UCD site https://libguides.ucd.ie/findingmaps/mapshistoriccounties captures a lot. You need to start with old maps, which give the main roads out of Dublin, (e.g. those by Taylor & Skinner in the 1770s). Henry Pelham made a beautiful map of Clare in the same era. Many roads date to pre-history and become ‘improved’ gradually, often with kinks being ironed out e.g. the Ring of Kerry road largely joined up existing ‘roads’ and improved them, much was done during the 1840s Famine Relief projects overseen by County Engineer Henry Stokes.  Several roads that were 'private' i.e. built by a landlord on his estate were 'taken in charge' by the local authorities.

Dr Arnold Horner of UCD has several publications/commentaries on various maps.

R119 on the other side of Dublin Bay to your R 127 is ‘modern’ as it was private land until a road was opened in c1900. Local history publications and the newspaper archives will give you the stages of development, as road improvement works went out to tender and the costings usually are included. Estate records also give details as many roads were co-funded by the local landlord and the County’s Grand Jury. Various government/parliamentary commissions also mention allocation of funds and/or comments on who laid what road.