Old road surface uncovered

This section of the old cobble road surface uncovered during current excavations outside O'Connell's Bar prompted thoughts on when the road might have first been tarred, writes Brian Byrne. A photograph from the Lawrence Collection, from around 1900, shows the main street as an untarred road, and in 1903, when the Gordon Bennett Race was held, all the main roads around Kilcullen were essentially dirt.

Tarring was done gradually. In 1916, the local authority sometimes only tarred the middle of a road to save money, according to the minutes of a Kildare County Council meeting in the 1920s. Because the tarred sections had a 'crossfall' camber to allow water to drain off, it could be difficult for horses, which was a common complaint to the council. Additionally, it was typical to apply a 'sealing' coat of tar on top, which made the surface slippery for horses. 

However, the local authority in Kildare demonstrated that the lifespan of tarred sections was longer than with the previous method of using water-bound soft limestone. By this time, too, the level of motor traffic, including buses and lorries, was increasing, and these needs superseded those of horse-drawn traffic. By 1928, about 12 per cent of County Kildare's roads were tarred. 

The late Tommy Byrne, my uncle, recalled that when he was a young boy playing on the main street in Kilcullen in the early 1930s, 'the tar had arrived,' so they were able to play with spinning tops on the roadway.

The road through Kilcullen was historically important as part of Ireland's first turnpike (toll-road) system, established in 1729 to improve the poor condition of the route. After the formation of the Irish Free State, significant and ongoing improvements to main roads occurred in the 1920s and early 1930s, funded by grants from the Road Fund. By the mid-1930s, most main roads in the area had been surfaced with tarmacadam.
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