Milestone outside 247 Armagh Road Tullyhappy Newry Co. Armagh BT35 6NL

Milestone, tentatively dated to circa 1770, standing on the south side of the former coach road between Armagh and Dublin at Tullyhappy, County Armagh.

This is a painted granite milestone approximately 450mm high with a rounded top. The west face bears the inscription "Newry 3½", the east face reads "M'Hill 5½", and the north face — the side facing the road — carries the partially effaced number 54, presumed to record the distance to Dublin. All distances are given in Irish miles, a unit of measurement equal to 2.048 kilometres, which was in common use in Ireland from the time of the Plantation until the early 19th century. The Irish mile was largely superseded following the Weights and Measures Act 1824, after which statute measure based on the English mile (1.609 kilometres) was generally adopted.

The milestone sits on the route that became known as the Armagh Road, connecting Newry and Markethill via Loughgilly. At the time of John Rocque's map of County Armagh in 1760, this route was not yet complete: while sections between Markethill and Loughgilly, and between Tullyhappy and Newry, were already in existence, the connecting section had not yet been constructed. The older main route from Newry to Markethill at that time was a turnpike road lying to the west, passing through Mountnorris. Taylor and Skinner's Maps of the Roads of Ireland, surveyed in 1777, show the current road complete and in its entirety, and also mark a Turnpike at the head of the earlier road to the south of Markethill. Crucially, Taylor and Skinner's map shows a figure of "4" at approximately the location of the present milestone, representing the distance to the 50-mile marker at Newry, which is consistent with the distances inscribed on the stone. This raises the possibility that Taylor and Skinner's surveyors recorded the actual milestone in situ in 1777.

The position of the stone on the current road is consistent with all three inscribed distances, making it unlikely that it has been moved any significant distance from where it was first placed. On the reasonable assumption that it was erected at or shortly after the road's completion, a date of between 1760 and 1777 is probable, with circa 1770 suggested as the most likely period.

The road itself was constructed using the presentment system, which empowered Grand Juries in each county to build and repair roads using monies raised through the county cess or rates. This system, formalised from 1710 and consolidated by legislation including the Roads Act of 1765, was unique to Ireland and was at its most active in the period between 1750 and 1850, driven by economic expansion. Grand Jury presentment books for County Armagh record payments of £44 3s 6d, £48 14s 4d, £44 12s 8d, and £19 2s 5d to various parties in 1777 for works on the road between Markethill and Newry, suggesting that the through road was completed and the milestone erected at around this time. The older turnpike road between Armagh and Newry had a poor reputation. Arthur Young, who travelled along it in July 1776, wrote scathingly: "This road is abominably bad, continually over hills, rough, stony and cut up. It is a turnpike, which in Ireland is a synonymous term for a vile road; which is the more extraordinary as the bye ones are the finest in the world. It is the effect of jobs and imposition, which disgrace the kingdom; the presentment roads show what may be done and render these villainous turnpikes the more disgusting." The poor condition of the turnpike is thought to have been a principal motivation for constructing the alternative presentment road through Loughgilly.

After mail coach routes were established in Ireland following legislation of 1784 setting up an independent Irish Post Office, the mail coach service from Armagh was routed along this newer road between Markethill and Newry rather than along the old turnpike, and traffic on the road increased as the mail coach network developed. A newspaper advertisement in the Belfast Newsletter of 28 February 1804 records that a mail coach was about to commence running from Dungannon to Newry, and that a meeting of interested parties was to be held in Newry to consider improvements to the post road from Markethill to Newry. The Ordnance Survey Memoirs of 1837 confirm that the mail coach road at Markethill continued to be maintained by the county through Grand Jury presentments.

This milestone is considered a significant survival of a free-standing granite wayside marker within an increasingly rare network of such waymarkers across Northern Ireland, and forms part of a wider heritage associated with the presentment road system in Ireland.