Jo Kerrigan’s welcome book traces lesser-known routes in Ireland - lesser-known to the stranger anyway - useful not just for the walker but for the casual student of social history.
Richard Mills’ splendid black-and-white photographs help make the book into a consummate picture of old ways that are still with us physically and spritually.
The 300-page work is divided into five chapters, on The Great River Roads, and four further chapters whose sub-headings are: Pathways to the Past, The Canal Age, Lost Railways and Sea Roads. In her introduction, Kerrigan signals the ravages of development, as it were; how the increasing demand of commerce has led to the creation of the new infrastructure of motorways, thereby `cutting off wasteful curves and by-passing towns and villages which once saw a constant roar of traffic. ‘
But she doesn’t so much celebrate the roar, rather the quiet wheels of long-gone industry, the syteam age and before. The author readily recognises distances between towns and cities shortened with the new routes, but she believes the amount the more leisurely traveller misses is `incalculable.’ As for railways, despite their obvious decline from their former eminence, she reports that the old tracks are still there in the fabric of the countryside, `the forgotten stations, the hidden halts, each with its own story to tell.’
Pilgrim paths to sacred places such as Glendalough and Clonmacnoise are part of Kerrigan’s brief and along her engaging route, she also manages to tell us the stories of prominent families, such as the Butlers of Kilkenny.
Verses and apposite songs - Percy French’s Are You Right There Michael? and its subject, the West Clare Railway for instance – are worked into the engaging story, which also takes in some of our off-shore islands.
