Local history with Monica McGill: Slí Dhála one of the five great Irish thoroughfares

ACCORDING to historians Ó Lochlainn and Geissel, in prehistory an important roadway passed through Clondalkin linking Dublin City with Celbridge.

It was known as Slí Dhála Meic Umhóir or Beleagh Muige Dála, translated loosely into English as The Road of the Assemblies.

It became part of a later, medieval roadway called An tSlí Mhór.

This Slí was a major early highway, one of the five great Irish thoroughfares and the M50 of its day.

Early medieval Clondalkin on the Slí must have been a busy place because of the steady stream of visitors here.

They would have included merchant traders, pilgrims and religious seeking spiritual, temporal or educational assistance, either in Clondalkin itself or further afield.

Some wild flowers, An tSlí Mhór/Pilgrim Path Photo courtesy Clondalkin Tidy Towns

Part of this Slí is still in use today as Clondalkin’s Pilgrim Path to St Bridget’s Well in the village and a short-cut to and from the local Luas station.

The highway exists thanks to the effects of a prehistoric Ice Age glacier.

Ice Age glacier Mother Nature is a sculptor.

The weather is part of her tool-kit.

During the last Ice Age, her glaciers carved out continents and oceans, mountains, hills, valleys and waterways as they increased southwards from the Arctic.

The glaciers’ enormous weight captured rocks and gravel on their way.

This material became Nature’s sand-paper, gouging out and altering the land under the glaciers as they moved along.

One such glacier covered Ireland.

When the weather warmed up here about 10,000 years ago, it melted revealing a whole new landscape, a new geography deeply influencing our lives and livelihoods from prehistory to today.

Esker Riada Our melting glacier left us thousands of tonnes of rocks, gravel and sand.

They formed a series of mostly elevated, fast-draining ridges in almost continuous lines from Dublin to Galway with soggy bogs, rougher terrain or enriched land on either side.

Together, these particular ridges are known as Esker Riada since ancient times.

It’s like a waist-belt across Ireland’s midriff, and very useful it has been.

Sometimes, sand and gravel taken for building purposes from places along Esker Riada has made its identification difficult for geographers.

Locally however, parts of it can still be identified in Clondalkin and Lucan.

Thankfully, the word Esker is found in some of Lucan’s place names even these days.

Esker Riada’s higher ground, good drainage and location was ideal for an important early road between Dublin and Galway to be laid on it.

Known as An tSlí Mhór (in English, The Great Highway, in Latin Via Magna), it was one of the five major medieval roadways in Ireland.

It was mentioned in The Annals of the Four Masters (ref. M123.2) and The Book of Leinster (p. 107).

It seems that the route of this Slí across our midland bogs may have changed somewhat from time to time, perhaps because of local conditions.

In early medieval Ireland, religion, education and trading goods combined to make travel essential – mostly on foot, but sometimes on horseback or by chariot.

Roadways then were of various widths depending on the traffic using them.

It seems that road maintenance was the responsibility of local chiefs whose land abutted the roads.

Medieval road widths The medieval “bóthar” was the narrowest roadway.

It was only wide enough for 2 cows – one cow standing across the road and another standing lengthways beside its companion.

The Irish word “bóthar” means “road” in English.

The root of the word (bó) is the Irish for “cow”.

The next widest road was known as a “lámraite”, a by-road connecting two major highways.

The widest, and most important roadway was a Slí.

It was wide enough for two chariots (each pulled by two horses) to pass easily so that neither chariot owner had to give way.

In 1152, St Laurence O’Toole at the Synod of Kells had made Clondalkin a parish and part of his ecclesiastical manor.

Having a road wide enough for two chariots to pass each other meant that no dignitaries would lose face when their chariots met on the Slí.

Generally, any type of roadway – especially a secondary road – was called a ród – or rout in earlier times – while a curved roadway was a tógraite.

An tSlí Mhór and Clondalkin Experts say that our Slí passed through Clondalkin village, making it a busy village quite apart from its monastery and St Bridget’s Well.

Merchants and cattle-dealers would have travelled along this Slí, heading for places between Dublin and Galway or returning home having concluded their business deals.

Pilgrims visiting St Bridget’s Well or St Crónán’s monastery (both in the village) also used this road, as did people travelling between monastic centres.

The monastery may have provided all visitors – whatever their reasons for being here – with opportunities to ease their souls with prayer and their bodies with a medieval version of bed-and- breakfast.

Stabling for horses and repairs to vehicles may also have been available.

A distinct part of this ancient monument, the Road of the Assemblies/An tSlí Mhór remains in use today in Clondalkin, although reduced in width and now re-named the Pilgrim Path.

It connects the top of Monastery Road with St Bridget’s Well on the far side of the village.

An annual pilgrimage from Dublin City to St Bridget’s Well honours this patron saint of Ireland, taking place around her feast day (1st February).

The final part of the pilgrimage includes this ancient roadway.

At other times, it’s a commuters’ short-cut to and from the local Red Cow Luas Station.

So far, Clondalkin Tidy Towns volunteers and other locals (in collaboration with landowners and our local authority) work hard sympathetically maintaining the Path as it is today in all its glorious wildfulness and natural habitats.

Although some can find its quieter aspects unnerving, the Pilgrim Path with its wild flowers and hedgerows is a place in Clondalkin where Mother Nature, if left alone, abundantly provides for us the colours of “weeds” and the welcome sounds of bees, birds and glimpses of other wildlife.

Will we be able to keep it that way?