Ancient Road — Lalistown,rathnew

This embanked roadway running N-S towards the top of the Hill of Uisneach is annotated 'Ancient Road' on all editions of the OS 6-inch map. On this map it is depicted running N for a distance of 500m from the public road (R3900) where it provides access onto the S side of a large conjoined ringfort (WM024-066----). This embanked roadway was described in 1963 as an 'Ancient roadway, marked by a double bank, moving S from conjoined ringforts (WM024-066----) to a modern road. On Hill of Uisneach' (SMR file 1963). In 1976 the monument was described as a 'sunken roadway 6m wide in places extends almost from the modern road directly opposite the driveway to Lunestown demense which may be built as an extension of it. In its present state it begins behind the gate lodge of Lunestown House. The ancient road is bounded on the E by a low scarped bank of earth and stone and on the W by a more obvious bank of stone & earth. There are stones some of which may have been said to have been laid down. The W bank and portion of the E bank may have originally been constructed as dry walling but now they are grassed over. The roadway runs up the hill varying somewhat in width up to the ringfort (WM024-066----)' (SMR file 1976). Macalister and Praeger (1928, 81-2) described the ancient road as following; 'A roadway, running in an almost straight line up the southern slope of the hill. On each side there are the foundations of dry-stone walls, now reduced to a maximum height of about 2' [0.6m], and turfed over. Local gossip asserts that it can be traced south of the Lunestown demesne, on the south side of the Mullingar-Ballymore road; and that it ultimately makes its way to Streamstown. No such extension, however, is to be traced on the Ordnance Map. The first hint of its existence is in the beginning of the carriage drive to Lunestown House, which for some yards is exactly in a line with it, and may be constructed upon it. If there was a section crossing the modern road, this has naturally been effaced ; and a further possible section may be covered by the gate-lodge of Lunestown, which is on the north side of the modern road, and which stands exactly in the line of the old Roadway. In its present state, therefore, the Roadway does not now begin lower down the hill-slope than the back of the gate-lodge. Here the walls are ill-defined, and the width is not quite certain; it seems to be about 25' [8m]. Its lowest section runs up a rather steep slope to a shoulder of the hill, where it is hidden by a clump of bushes. Above this obstacle its breadth is 18 [6m] to 22 feet [7m], with the low side walls already described ; its course is remarkably straight, directed about 10 points west of true north. At a point about 750' [230m] from the modern road, the road on its western side strikes the corner of a field-boundary and changes its course to about 3 points west of north; keeping the same breadth, and having boundary walls of the same character as before. A short distance below the change of direction there is a heap of stones, 35' [12m] long, 5' [1.5m] broad, and about 2' [0.6m] high, within the roadway. This appears to be nothing but an accumulation cleared for agricultural purposes from the field. Above this, the eastern side wall is almost effaced for some distance, and the roadway crosses a slight hollow in the hill-side. Some little way above the change of direction there is a stone in the middle of the road, measuring about 4' [1.2m] by 2' [0.6m] by 2' [0.6m]; apparently the road-makers shirked the labour of removing this obstacle. As we approach the hill-top, the side walls become broken and interrupted, especially on the eastern side; the western wall, though faint in places, nowhere disappears until it reaches the hill-top; indeed, it seems to continue as the boundary-wall between the Central and Eastern Sections of the summit Enclosure [WM024-066----]. The length of the upper part of the Roadway, after the change of direction, is about 900' [275m], of which the last 200' [61m] is ill defined. It seems here to widen to the width of the Central Section of the hill-top enclosure. We cut a trench across a well marked part of the Roadway, in order to ascertain whether any form of pavement had been used; and also to find out more fully the nature of the boundary walls. It was found that there is actually a pavement of small rough pebbles, angular, not water worn, measuring about 1" [0.02m] to 3" [0.07m] in diameter, laid at about 8" [0.2m] beneath the present surface. Underneath this layer of pebbles there is a bed of fine loam resting upon the Drift, which, at the place where the trench was cut, is 1' 6" [0.45m] beneath the present surface. As the depth of soil covering the Drift, outside the Roadway, is here 3' 6" [1m], the present floor of the Roadway is sunk about 2' [0.6m] beneath the level of the surrounding field. In constructing the side walls, a row of stones on edge was set up to form a footing, and, above them, field-stones were laid between and over them, as in a modern wall'. The dating of the road with the second building phase of the hilltop enclosure/ringfort (WM024-066----) as suggested by Macalister and Praeger (1928, 92) is problematical. This uncertainty and revised dating was recently summarised by Schot (2006, 48-9) as following; 'The embanked roadway plays a pivotal role in Macalister and Praeger's structural sequence (though this is often implicit in the text), and therefore warrants specific comment here. It is necessary to emphasise from the outset that the primary position assigned to this feature by the excavators (their 'second period') is purely conjectural and is founded on the a priori view that this so-called 'ancient road' was a processional avenue leading specifically to the enclosure(s) on the summit. Indeed, Macalister and Praeger went so far as to surmise that the road may have extended deep into the interior of the site on the basis of the apparent alignment of the western bank of the road on the denuded wall separating the Eastern and Western Enclosures. Unfortunately, much of their account regarding the structural development of the site is predicated on this putative relationship. In reality, such a relationship could not be proven because the roadway, such as it is, stops more than 40m short of the enclosure. There is, indeed, nothing to indicate that the roadway proper ever continued further northwards: the denuded earthen banks attached to its western bank including that aligned on the wall separating the enclosures are the remnants of a derelict field system. Furthermore, there is no clear evidence of an entrance to the enclosure at the point where, if projected, the road would intersect with it. The result, as we shall see, is that the excavators were forced to make some rather bizarre, and totally unsupportable, interpretations of the stratigraphical evidence. In fact, while the nature of the relationship between the roadway and the field boundaries appended to its western bank remains unclear, the morphological attributes of the roadway proper tend to suggest a relatively late date. A section cut across a well-defined (but unidentified) part of the roadway revealed a paved surface consisting of small, angular pebbles, laid approximately 0.2m below the present surface, flanked on either side by a bank composed of 'a row of stones on edge' with field stones 'laid between and over them, as in a modern wall'. As such, the suggestion put forward here that the roadway was constructed during the medieval period can be independently supported by both topographical and excavated evidence, and yet also accords well with the evidence from the enclosures, outlined below'. Compiled and revised by: Caimin O'Brien Date of revised upload: 09 May 2019