A series of posts from the Historical Assoc. Facebook group page - I'm From Togher , Boy!
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A Walled Road
When trying to date something inorganic , it can be tricky unless you have some reference with which to work with. Roads are notoriously difficult. Take our Districts main thoroughfare for example - Togher Road. It never shows up as such on any old maps or even the Skinner & Taylor Road Maps of Ireland 1777. But we can infer it exists based on the Lough Road from which it obviously followed on from. Aside from old houses ( most now gone ) which can be dated to the mid 17th Century thus giving us an indication that the road existed , we have no further proof of its age except from folklore and reasoned logic , which would suggest a link to Kinsale town going back many Centuries. Henchion makes mention of crushed stones being moved from Ellis Quarry ( Clashduff ) to be used in steamrolling both Togher and Pouladuff Roads in 1900. Perhaps this gives us some clue as to the state of the road in the 19th Century. Was it just a rough dirt track? Of course since then , it has been repeatably covered and widened with hardcore and tarmacadam. The early 1960s up to the start of the 1970s saw its biggest change ; with the clearing away of its trees , ditch-lines , railway bridge and walls , it has been transformed beyond all recognition. The only traces of its former look remain in the old National School wall , the wall by the Gulley near Greenwood Estate ( sadly partially depleted in recent times ) and the stone wall by Togher Cross ( next to Liberty Stream ). When Togher got its first bus service in 1946 , the locals coined the expression - Keep in by the walls and mind the buses. Alas almost all of those walls are gone forever.
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