Practically all the roads
in use in the parish today were in existence at the time of the publication
of the first O.S. maps in 1842. Sixty years previously the case was
much different. In 1783 the 2nd. Ed. Of Taylor and Skinner’s
map shows no sign of the present village street of Crusheen. At that
date the Gort-Ennis road still ran in its ancient course, i.e. the present
section of the Tulla road from the village south to the crossroads at
the school – the "croisín" that gives the present parish its
name; there it turned westward for almost half a mile until it emerged
beside Fogarty’s cottage on the present road. Hard to believe now that
the narrow overgrown track by the GAA pitch was once a busy thoroughfare
over which Bianconi’s cars, among many others ran regularly.
Some time in the intervening
59 years the road which now runs under the railway bridge and past the
church to join the old road at Clarkes was built. No doubt his new road,
which was, in erect, a bypass, changed the whole center of gravity of
the village from the old "croisín" to what we have today.
In the process the only inn the parish possessed, Uniacke’s, must have
found business gravely affected since it stood on the old road, near
to where the school now is. Not a trace of this hostelry remains today.
In 1783 the little laneway
between Fogarty’s and Clarke’s which crosses the railway and joins the
Ruan road just beyond it was the road to Corofin. Only with the arrival
of the railway in 1869 and the building of the station was the present
station road made necessary and the old roadway declined to what it
is today a mere pathway.
With the coming of motor
transport many smaller pathways have fallen into disuse, some of them
within living memory. Evidence of their very existence has in some cases
vanished, but not in all. The two coffin stones (one for children, one
for adults) on the former funeral-path to Inchicronan graveyard (D5)
and Clock na nDeor at Doon (H8) were resting places for coffin-bearers
on these paths in times gone by. The remains of another old road to
Doon graveyard may still be seen just a quarter of a mile northeast
of Ballinruan church (17)
Doubtless, other even
more ancient paths still await discovery in parts of the parish covered
in swamp or bogland. One such was found during turf cutting near Inchicronan
Island some years ago, but the discovery was not pursued.
