The six-day road-labour requirement reveals how Ireland’s government relied on unpaid rural labour to support movement, trade, and administration. Although the act capped service, it also extended the area and season in which labour could be demanded, suggesting that local burdens served wider economic and state interests. The article invites comparison between this communal maintenance system and later professional infrastructure, without assuming either was equitable or effective. How might evidence from parish records, market traffic, tenants’ experiences, and subsequent turnpike development help us assess whether the 1710 roads act chiefly strengthened communities, commerce, or governmental control across rural Ireland then?