Tubber Lane is a very genuine and direct link with our past. The road layout appears on some of the earliest surveyed maps of the area and still retains its shape today. And so, this week’s walk will be a road walk from the start of Tubber Lane to the point where it meets the hamlet of Stacumny.
The weather, though unsettled, is perfect as I approach Lucan Golf Course looking for the little crossroads where Tubber Lane begins. The golf course has been here since 1900 and, according to a local legend that I’ve often heard repeated, the Dublin/Kildare border runs down the middle of the bar in the club house so that the proprietors can take full advantage of any licencing law differences between the counties. It’s a nice little legend – but entirely untrue as it would require the bar being an additional 1500m long to reach the true border.
However, as I turn onto Tubber Lane, I see something quite unexpected – a large bird of prey casually ambling across one of the greens on the lookout for his next meal! I access the part of my brain that stores information about bird identification and confirm with myself that 1) It is not a crow, and 2) It is not a robin. Therefore, it must be a falcon. My brain satisfied, I move on as the falcon saunters casually on to the next hole.
There is flowing water on either side of the narrow roadway at this point. This is the Tobermaclugg stream. The word ‘Tobar’, meaning well, in the name should give a clue to the function of this area in times past. Tubber Lane comes from Tobar as the road became known for the Tobermaclugg Holy Well, or ‘The Well with the Bell’. Soon, to my left, I pass the Tobermaclugg Water Pumping Station, behind which is a natural meadow amphitheater in which the renowned holy well once thrived. I have no doubt that it was venerated from very ancient times and gradually it became associated with cures for eye and ear diseases in the Medieval era (when the HSE of its day relied on well-based health solutions).
To the right, I spy a trail along the stream through some trees. I decide to take a detour and follow it along. After four or five minutes of branches scratching my face and mud trying to conquer my shoes, I notice that the stream has opened out into what looks like a very old (and very large) man made rectangular pond. This isn’t something I had seen before. I have not come across it on any old maps. What was it for? An artificial lake that was stocked with fish, perhaps? I retrace my steps and return to the road.
A little bit further on and the emerging settlement of Adamstown appears behind the fencing on my left. As I ramble along the road, I am struck with how big the development is as it effectively occupies the space between Tubber Lane and the Newcastle Road.
As I move on, I leave the developments behind and almost instantly appear to be in one of the remaining pieces of Dublin’s farmlands. In front of me and to the left, I can see all the way to Three Rock Mountain. A bit ahead to the Right, the modern buildings of the State Lab campus at Backweston begin to eke into view. Other than that, and a few scattered houses, there is nothing but countryside – something I am reminded of as a startled Heron emerges from a too-small ditch stream immediately beside me and takes to the part of the sky that had been occupied by my head just before I ducked a half second ago.
A bit further on, the field to my left clears and a ruin appears. This is all that is left of the old Aderrig church and graveyard, currently wearing an impressive natural thatch of ivy. Aderrig appears to have had a church on this location prior to the Norman Conquest and, indeed, this served as a functional church all the way up to the 1700s or thereabouts. Dwindling populations saw the parishes of Lucan and Aderrig eventually joined together and serviced by Lucan churches. As I move on, I leave Dublin County and enter Kildare with nary a clubhouse bar in sight.
Soon, the hedgerows grow taller as we begin to approach the end of this ramble. The hamlet of Stacumny draws nearer. Stacumney has an interesting history. There is a report of a railway ambush here during the War of Independence that was foiled by military airplanes – very dramatic if true!
Stacumny House is the centrepiece of the townland – a grand 18th century house that, I am led to believe, contains its own theater and pub. According to an entry on the Dúchas website, the house is said to be built on an old cemetery and, naturally, haunted. The same entry says that Backweston, the lands adjoining it, were known for appearances of Willo’ the Wisp. The account, written in the 1930s, curiously goes on to say “Many people were left in a certain field in the grounds until early hours of the morning trying to find a way out but of no avail as it is said to be the “Fairies’ Pass.”
With the necessary nod to irony, I think about how the Backweston lands once associated with these superstitions now house the State’s science lab complex. The towering cranes currently in place here are building the latest addition to the campus – a new home for Forensic Science Ireland.
This is the end point of my ramble today – a walk down a few kilometers of a seemingly unassuming rural laneway that has brought me in contact with a thousand years or more of the history of my locality. I look forward to being quoted in another thousand years by whatever local author decides to ramble through the landscape of pre-historic Adamstown.