For a country, so very far behind us as Ireland, to have got suddenly so much the start of us in the article of roads, is a spectacle that cannot fail to strike the English traveller exceedingly. But from this commendation the turnpikes in general must be excluded; they are as bad as the bye-roads are admirable. It is a common complaint that the tolls of the turnpikes are so many jobs, and the roads left in a state that disgrace the kingdom.
The following is the system on which the cross-roads are made. Any person wishing to make or mend a road has it measured by two persons, who swear to the measurement before a justice of the peace. It is described as leading from one market-town to another (it matters not in what direction), that it will be a public good, and that it will require such a sum per perch of twenty-one feet, to make or repair the same. A certificate to this purpose (of which printed forms are sold), with the blanks filled up, is signed by the measurers, and also by two persons called overseers, one of whom is usually the person applying for the road, the
other the labourer he intends to employ as an overseer of the work, which overseer swears also before the justice the truth of the valuation. The certificate thus prepared is given by any person to some one of the grand jury, at either of the assizes, but usually in the spring. When all the common business of trials is over, the jury meets on that of roads; the chairman reads the certificates, and they are all put to the vote, whether to be granted or not. If rejected, they are torn in pieces and no further notice taken; if granted, they are put on the file.
This vote of approbation, without any further form, enables the person who applied for the presentment immediately to construct or repair the road in question, which he must do at his own expense; he must finish it by the following assizes, when he is to send a certificate of his having expended the money pursuant to the application; this certificate is signed by the foreman, who also signs an order on the treasurer of the county to pay him, which is done immediately. In like manner are bridges, houses of correction, gaols, etc. etc., built and repaired. If a bridge over a river which parts two counties, half is done by one and the other half by the other county.
The expense of these works is raised by a tax on the lands, paid by the tenant; in some counties it is acreable, but in others it is on the plough land, and as no two plough lands are of the same size, is a very unequal
tax. In the county of Meath it is acreable, and amounts to one shilling per acre, being the highest in Ireland; but in general it is from threepence to sixpence per acre, and amounts of late years through the whole kingdom to one hundred and forty thousand pounds a year.
The juries will very rarely grant a presentment for a road which amounts to above fifty pounds, or for more than six or seven shillings a perch, so that if a person wants more to be made than such a sum will do, he divides it into two or three different measurements or presentments. By the Act of Parliament, all presentment-roads must be twenty-one feet wide at least from fence to fence, and fourteen feet of it formed with stone or gravel.
As the power of the grand jury extends in this manner to the cutting new roads where none ever were before, as well as to the repairing and widening old ones, exclusive, however, of parks, gardens, etc., it was necessary to put a restriction against the wanton expense of it. Any presentment may be traversed that is opposed, by denying the allegations of the certificate; this is sure of delaying it until another assizes, and in the meantime persons are appointed to view the line of road demanded, and report on the necessity or hardship of the case. The payment of the money may also be traversed after the certificate of its being laid out; for if any person views and finds it a manifest imposition
and job, he has that power to delay payment until the cause is cleared up and proved. But this traverse is not common. Any persons are eligible for asking presentments; but it is usually done only by resident gentlemen, agents, clergy, or respectable tenantry. It follows necessarily, that every person is desirous of making the roads leading to his own house, and that private interest alone is considered in it, which I have heard objected to the measure; but this I must own appears to me the great merit of it. Whenever individuals act for the public alone, the public is very badly served; but when the pursuit of their own interest is the way to benefit the public, then is the public good sure to be promoted; such is the case of presentment of roads: for a few years the good roads were all found leading from houses like rays from a centre, with a surrounding space, without any communication; but every year brought the remedy, until in a short time, those rays pointing from so many centres met, and then the communication was complete. The original Act passed but seventeen years ago, and the effect of it in all parts of the kingdom is so great, that I found it perfectly practicable to travel upon wheels by a map; I will go here; I will go there; I could trace a route upon paper as wild as fancy could dictate, and everywhere I found beautiful roads without break or hindrance, to enable me to realise my design. What a figure would a person make in
England, who should attempt to move in that manner, where the roads, as Dr. Burn has well observed, are almost in as bad a state as in the time of Philip and Mary. In a few years there will not be a piece of bad road except turnpikes in all Ireland. The money raised for this first and most important of all national purposes, is expended among the people who pay it, employs themselves and their teams, encourages their agriculture, and facilitates so greatly the improvement of waste lands, that it ought always to be considered as the first step to any undertaking of that sort.