Identifying public works in County Mayo in 1822

By Tom Gillespie

THE pioneering Scottish engineer Alexander Nimmo came to Ireland in 1811 and remained in the country until the time of his death in 1832.

During this time he was employed by a number of government bodies in various key road building projects.

Clifden born author Kathleen Villiers-Tuthill, in her 2006 book ‘Alexander Nimmo and The Western District’, described his visit to Mayo.

Nimmo arrived in Mayo fully acquainted with Bald’s survey and maps. He was also familiar with the maps and the many suggestions and recommendations made by both Griffith and Bald in their respective reports to the Bog Commission.

All of these would prove useful in prioritising works and deciding routes for new roads. Work soon got underway in almost every district ion the county.

The publication of Bald’s survey and map had brought a great deal of attention to the more remote regions of the county and had given the Mayo Grand Jury and landlords a sound basis from which to consider projected improvements.

On June 21, 1822, Nimmo was in Castlebar assessing 19 applications for public works in the Western District, forwarded to him by Dublin Castle. In Mayo, Grand Jury presentments had been passed for repairs and for some new roads on the north and east of the county.

Nimmo advanced funds for payments to the workmen, but informed the lord lieutenant that for ‘the vast tract between Killala Bay and View Bay there (was) no presentment works to be aided’.

He had started work on the piers at Achill and Saleen, but the relief offered there was ‘trifling in comparison to the extent and urgency of the distress’. He begged the lord lieutenant to sanction new works in the area: ‘I should therefore beg His Excellency to grant permission to lay out and form the several lines of road recommended for opening up in this highly improvable county'.

His plan for Mayo was similar to that of Galway - new coastal roads with cross roads linking them with the interior.

He recommended that a new road be run along the north coast from Killala to Blacksod Bay and improvements be made to an existing road from Newport to Achill. He also recommended that they complete the central road from Castlebar to Erris, already started by Mayo Grand Jury.

The Mayo Grand Jury had previously received funds from the Consolidated Fund and had started work on two roads into Erris and one from Westport to Killary Harbour.

Nimmo’s suggestion that he take over the Castlebar to Erris road was in stark contrast to his decision not to interfere with similar works underway on the old centre road in Connemara.

The reasoning behind this may well have been that he favoured the Mayo Grand Jury over that in Galway. Certainly the Mayo Grand Jury appeared to be more active in passing presentments.

However, it could also be that in Galway there was some confusion over the method of payment for the labourers. Nimmo found the accounts for the Mayo roads to be in perfect order.

Major Denis Bingham, of Bingamstown, complained to Dublin Castle of the ‘misapplication’ of funds on this road, but Nimmo refused this after examining the relevant documents and stated them to be ‘remarkably correct and distinct’.

Here again Nimmo was requesting free government funds for public works. Prior to this the government’s response to periods of distress was usually temporary and lacked the commitment to long-term public works.

Nimmo was mindful that there should be no ambiguity regarding any government sanction for his proposed roads.

The roads he was proposing for Galway and Mayo would not be completed in the short term, they were long-term projects.

He pointed out the difficulties he was already experiencing because of the extent of his district and the number of works requiring assistance.

To comply with the government’s desire to pay the labourers each week in cash would alone require several pay clerks, ‘whose fidelity’, he informed the authorities, ‘in a temporary operation of this sort could not be easily secured’.

He had already advanced money to overseers for works scattered throughout the district, ‘as a visit to each of (the works) was more than one person can possibly make’.

Conscious of what he had witnessed while working for the Loan Commission, regarding the swearing of oaths on the validity of ‘dubious’ figures, Nimmo abandoned the procedure in the west and, on handing over the cash, he insisted ‘on written vouchers (receipts) and regular witnessing’. Nimmo held the opinion that Ireland had almost double the roads it required, if they were laid out correctly.

In the western district he set out to rectify this by planning to run main lines through the counties, linking the principal market towns with the canals and sea ports, ‘and thereby supersede a multitude of crooked cross and branch roads, which form the principal communications at present’.

Nimmo’s plan for the interior was to link the Royal Canal with the ports of Sligo, Ballina and Killala, and the Grand Canal with the towns of Castlebar, Westport, Galway and Gort.

In the coastal regions, new roads would link the new fishery piers and improved harbours with the interior.

The central Erris road in Mayo, and eventually the old centre road in Galway, would be upgraded and completed.

However, the coastal ring roads of counties Galway and Mayo, identified by Nimmo from the start as being the most needed for the development of the west, would be the most extensive roads undertaken by him in the Western District.

Limestone was the preferred stone for building roads in the interior, as these were expected to attract a good deal of traffic; for roads on the west coast Nimmo used the local granite and gneiss. The mountain roads he made with gravel only, but those on the plains were paved with broken stone.