Road - road/trackway, Glengoole, Co. Tipperary
Co. Tipperary |
Roads & Tracks
A grass-covered cobbled road running across the northern face of the Slieveardagh hills in County Tipperary carries a name that locals have never quite let go: Cromwell's Road.
Whether or not Oliver Cromwell had anything directly to do with it, the name has stuck to every portion of this route, from the cobbled stretch on the hillside to the bog crossings further northeast, and that persistence alone hints at how deeply the road impressed itself on local memory.
The main surviving section is a three-metre-wide cobbled trackway running east to west along a northwest-facing slope, with views opening out over lower ground to the west, north, and east, and higher ground rising behind it to the south. The road is not simply a worn path; it is a constructed feature, defined on its northern side by a low scarp and on its southern, uphill side by a substantial stone-faced field bank, which stands between two and two-and-a-half metres high on the interior face, with an outer fosse, or drainage ditch, cut into the slope beyond it. This combination of raised bank and ditch is typical of deliberate road engineering rather than casual use, suggesting the route once carried significant traffic across difficult terrain. A further extension runs northeast from the main New Birmingham road, passing dry land to reach a church in the townland of Glengoole North, and then continuing across the bog where it survives as a togher, the Irish term for a raised or reinforced causeway laid across wet ground, eventually connecting with Derryvella church. The fact that the same local name, Cromwell's Road, attaches to all these sections suggests they were understood as a single continuous route, threading churches and communities together across the hills and bogland.
The western end of the cobbled section is now blocked by furze bushes and is no longer accessible from that approach. A coniferous plantation has been established in the adjoining field to the north, which has altered the immediate landscape, though the road and its flanking earthworks remain visible on the hillside itself.