Road - road/trackway, Cloheen By., Co. Cork

Running for roughly 1.2 kilometres along a north-facing slope through tillage land, and flanked on both sides by overgrown drystone walls, this sunken trackway descends in a north-east to south-west trajectory through the landscape near Clonakilty. Locals know it as the Rocky Road, a name that speaks plainly to the nature of walking it.

The trackway formed part of the old overland route between Clonakilty and Castlefreke, the latter being the seat of the Freke family on the west Cork coast. It appears on the Grand Jury map of Cork, surveyed in the 1790s and published in 1811, and on the first edition Ordnance Survey six-inch map, meaning it was already a recognised and recorded route by the early nineteenth century. The Earl of Shannon's Estate Map of 1819 confirms that the Clonakilty to Castlefreke road was still in active use at that time, routed via a place called Lamb Street, a route that would in all likelihood have taken travellers along this very stretch. Grand Jury maps were produced by the county administrative body responsible for road maintenance and infrastructure in pre-Famine Ireland, so their inclusion of this trackway places it firmly within the working road network of the period, not a field path or a drove road, but a proper public route.

The road has since been bypassed by more modern alignments, and it now sees foot traffic rather than carts or coaches. The drystone walls on either side, though overgrown, still define the corridor clearly, and the cutting into the hillside gives it a slightly enclosed, lane-like quality that modern roads rarely retain.