We thank Presenter John Greene for advance information on this Sunday evening’s programme – 13th May 2018. (S.R.)
Two hundred and seventy years ago in 1748, and almost to the day, a fifty
six mile straight road was opened between Killarney and Cork.
Although being awarded the contract for it, John Murphy from Castleisland had to raise his own finance, in the hope that he would recoup it all by making it a toll road. But the road brought financial ruin for Murphy, resulting in debts of over four thousand pounds. Nobody knows for certain what happened to him afterwards..
In a two part programme on Where the road takes me…….
* We explore some options as to what was Murphy’s eventual fate.
* Along with Bertie Harte from Banteer, we travel this road, which
later became known as the ‘Butter Road’, and is still in use today.
And….
While it’s easy to be wise in hindsight – we discover that Murphy could have saved himself from financial ruin, if he had begun his roadbuilding just twenty years later.
Join John Greene for Where the road takes me, this Sunday evening at 7.
