They are portals to the past, places of lost histories, whispered tales, and forgotten lives, but Ireland’s ancient laneways threading their way through towns and cities are staging a revival. With urban redevelopment many of these thoroughfares became neglected while surrounding areas were replaced with the modernity of identikit shopping streets.
The labyrinth of narrow lanes in Belfast, referred to as Entries, have for centuries played an indelible role as clandestine routes for the rich and poor, and for horses and handcarts. The Morning News, Ireland’s first penny paper, was published in Crown Entry, while Joy’s Entry was named after Francis Joy, the founder of the Belfast News Letter. Winecellar and Pottinger’s Entries are shortcuts connecting the city centre with the cultural conviviality of the Cathedral Quarter, and come with colourful painted murals.
Sugarhouse Entry, the title of a novel in 1936 by Richard Hayward, had been damaged in the Blitz in 1941 and was closed for more than 50 years during the Troubles. It reopened recently as part of a new project to breathe life into the passageways. The entry took its name from a sugar refinery established in 1666, linked to the slave trade and which made many businessmen wealthy. The United Irishmen, some of whom stood against slavery by boycotting sugar products, met in the early 1790s in the Dr Franklin Tavern, which to divert suspicion was also known as the Muddler’s Club. They were welcomed by the redoubtable landlady, Peggy Barclay, but the rebels were betrayed by her barmaid Belle Martin.
In Derry, the Dark Lane – immortalised in Phil Coulter’s song The Town I Loved So Well – dated from 1750. However, in 1952 its name was changed to Joyce Street and two decades later it was demolished to make way for the Lecky Road flyover, but survives in the city’s musicality. Derry had a preponderance of business-related well-trodden pathways with Post Office, Stable, and Fish Lanes, and there was even a Breakneck Lane. During the 1870s, Priest Lane, which connected St Columb’s Wells and Long Tower Street, was known as the local “plague spot” where young women were said to “be lost to all sense of decency and morality”. Its name was later changed to Howard Street.
Across the river Foyle, in the Kilfennan area, Maggie Murphy’s Lane, was believed to have been haunted by the ghosts of a young couple and her enraged father. Legend has it that Maggie, her unsuitable lover, and her father died in tragic circumstances in the 1880s and are all said to bedevil the lane. However, when American GIs were based in the city during the second World War, the lane assumed a contrasting character as a place of assignation for soldiers and local women.
Kilkenny once boasted dozens of narrow passageways with evocative names such as Pennyfeather, Gooseberry, and Motty Lanes, and today its dark nooks are known as “slips”. Market Slip and Butter Slip, the latter flanked with the stalls of butter vendors in the early 1600s, retain their distinctive qualities with arched entries and flights of stone steps.
Galway can trace the origins of Kirwan’s Lane to the 16th century and it is believed to be one of five surviving medieval lanes out of an original 14. In the same city, Buttermilk Lane was an upmarket street providing lodgings for visiting dignitaries. The first-floor oriel window near the top of the lane was referred to as “O’Connell’s Window”, after Daniel O’Connell lodged there on his visit to Galway to address a monster meeting. During the early decades of the 1700s it was known as Shoemaker’s Lane and later Broguemaker’s Lane.
Today the lanes are thronged with cafes, bakeries, vibrant pubs and buskers, but are not only the prerogative of cities. Narrow thoroughfares have long been an intrinsic part of towns such as Enniskillen and Athlone – to name but two – and have maintained an attachment to their history. In Enniskillen the past is infused with a fresh energy where signboards reflect names of businesses such as Brewery Lane (later Queen’s Street), Magee’s Yard, Regal Pass, Nugent’s Entry, and Preaching Lane in memory of John Wesley.
In the midlands, hidden off one of Athlone’s main streets, Friary Lane and Lloyd’s Lane slope down to the Shannon. Deserted shopfronts along Connaught Street, on the Roscommon side of town, now display in their windows historic information and sepia photographs. At one stage there was a network of laneways off the street including College, Mary’s, Cemetery and Pipe Lanes, while Harry’s Lane, also called McCracken’s Lane, is a steep path with walls sprouting red valerian.
Old lanes are imbued with echoes of the footsteps and laughter of our ancestors. The artistic community is drawn to them and in his poetry the Athlone writer Desmond Egan celebrates them:
“as from a garden of original grace and sin something /of twisty lanes of oblique streets/of voices calm as the landscape/a walk a spiritual accent/lingers in fingerprints everywhere.”