Bypass Ireland: Macroom counting the days until new road is complete
Bypass The Minihane Is Town To Provide For To Flourish An Opportunity Picture Denis Hoped Macroom's
If there is any town in Ireland that badly needs a bypass, Macroom is up there.
Everyone who visits it experiences the notorious congestion of this mid-west County Cork town that chokes it most days.
But thankfully for everybody, it is a nightmare with an end in sight.
In the Dáil recently, Transport Minister Eamon Ryan said of Macroom: “It is a town that has struggled and suffered from the volume of traffic through it.
“It is a beautiful town which I think will rise once the bypass is built.
“By bringing the centre back to an amazing public place, we will get people working and living in Macroom and a really strong sense of community.
“Putting the bypass in provides an opportunity to take the through traffic out and we should start with the main square in Macroom.”
Auctioneer Killian Lynch has a wholly unequivocal view of just what the 22km of dual carriageway between Macroom to Baile Bhuirne is to the town.
“The bypass is the best thing that has ever happened to this town,” he says.
“Obviously through the construction phase, it's a bit like gridlock anyway but before it was ever started, for years and years, it has just been gridlocked here.
“You could plan to come into Macroom town and what could take a five-minute journey could end up being an hour.
“And if all you want to do is come into Macroom town for 10 minutes, you end up being scarred by the experience and you don't come here again for a month.
“And those people running to surrounding towns and villages to do their shopping.”
He added: “An awful lot of towns that get bypassed don't have all the services and then they get all the services and the different shops and things like that.
“Macroom, on the other hand, has all the services and the amenities but the problem now is — you can't get into them.
“Some towns take two to three years before they start getting going from the big change that follows the opening of a bypass.
“For Macroom, however, I think it will just hit the ground running as soon as the bypass comes in because the town has all those services and amenities within the town centre.”
He points out there are not many towns in post-Celtic Tiger Ireland that have a GAA pitch so close to the town centre.
“Ours is smack in The Square, more or less. It's adjacent to the square.
“Everything is within walking distance.
“Take our golf course as another example.
“If you are standing in the town square, you can be on the golf course in just five minutes.”
Due to be completed by the first quarter of 2024, the bypass comprises a 22km-long dual carriageway that begins west of Baile Bhuirne, passing north of Macroom and re-joins the existing N22 south of Macroom.
Construction began in 2020, and by the time it has finished, it will have witnessed a variety of engineering feats.
The most impressive of these so far has been the placing of seven 49m precast concrete bridge beams — the longest ever constructed for such a project in Ireland and the UK — over the River Laney as part of the N22 Baile Bhuirne to Macroom Road Development last December.
Made in Ireland, the 155-tonne beams arrived in Macroom via a Garda escort, which helped get them through the Jack Lynch Tunnel with just under eight inches gap between them and the ceiling of the tunnel.
This was for just one of the 18 bridges that will have been built by the end of the project.
More than 65% of the work has been completed and it is now expected a section of the bypass could be open as early as either the end of this year or the start of the next.
If a section is to be opened early, the understands it will be the part of the bypass from Coolcower on the eastern side of Macroom to Carrigaphooca of the western side.
This will, essentially, be the actual bypass of Macroom town itself.
When complete, the bypass will cut around 20 to 30 minutes off commuting time between Cork and Kerry and is also expected to end the traffic congestion which has been clogging up Macroom town centre for decades.
When, on October 17, 2019, the Cabinet gave the green light for the N22 Cork-Kerry road upgrade, the then minister for agriculture Michael Creed said the approval was a matter of “great personal satisfaction” for him.
What had been sought since the 1960s was finally going to happen after what he described as “decades of promises and false dawns”.
The Macroom-born Cork North-West Fine Gael TD said: “I've worn many hats on this issue, from being kind of a resident in the town to being a local councillor.
“I've beaten every drum from that level to the Cabinet table.
“I suppose to have been in Cabinet when we were able to pull all the threads together and get Cabinet approval for it and to have moved it through various stages at Government level before it was ultimately sanctioned, and contract signed was just the culmination of many years of effort.
“Success has many fathers, and I would acknowledge the role that everybody played, from elected representatives to public officials and there were many who assisted greatly along the way.
“But look, the most important thing is it's under way.”
As far as he understands, he said the project has the highest — if not one of the highest — cost-benefit ratios of any public transport project approved by the Government in “many, many years”.
He added: “That speaks volumes to the need for and its long overdue nature.
“So it's under way and what I think is fantastic to see is the progress that's evident now along the route from the county bounds east of Macroom.”
Asked if his involvement in the project — whether central or otherwise — will be one of his proudest achievements in his career, he replied: “I think that's true.”
“It’s not every day you go with an ask of €280m for a construction project.
“It's the single biggest construction project in Cork since the foundation of the State.
“Even by any other standard nationally, €280m is a big ask.
“But at the end of the day, it's a reflection on its overdue nature, I think more than anything else, and like I said — success has many fathers.”
While Killian Lynch believes the bypass will lead to an increase in property prices as the town becomes more attractive to live in, they will never be as expensive as areas such as Ballincollig.
“We have two big developments on the western outskirts of Macroom town,” he said.
“And the nearest junction to those two developments is about 300m to connect onto the bypass.
“Macroom was always seen as on the way to somewhere, on the way to Killarney, but now Macroom is increasingly being used as a halfway house.
“You have people who are working in Cork but they can't afford houses in Cork City so they'll get, say, they get their three-bedroom semi for between around €80,000 to €100,000 less here in Macroom than they will in Cork City.” He noticed property sales start to take off in 2020, with sales being busier than in 2007.
For every house he advertised in 2021, for example, he was getting 10 to 15 calls and properties were starting to sell in just a few weeks or even days.
Prices for three-bed semis in the town have increased by 10% since the start of 2021 and are only likely to increase further by the time the bypass is complete.
But it’s not just the humans of Macroom who will benefit — it is also a range of livestock at the town’s weekly marts.
Macroom Mart manager and auctioneer Jerh O’Sullivan said: “I think it will make accessibility in and out of the town a lot easier for both local farmers and the livestock hauliers from long distances.
“The bypass will probably take away at least 60% to 70% of the traffic going through the town that doesn't need to be in the town as it never stops here and has no connection with the town.
“That traffic is just using the roadway through the middle of the town to get from A to B.
“Everyone, including the animals, is going to benefit.
“The livestock will not be in the trailers and the trucks for as long, and they will get into their pens in the mart a lot quicker with water and space rather than being stuck in traffic like everybody else.”
He isn’t the only person who would be happy to see livestock spending less time going through the town.
Peggy O’Connell, who has run Vaughan’s Cafe on North Square with her sister for the past 30 years, is one.
“The bypass has to be a benefit as it will take away a lot of big lorries going to the town and make the place a nicer town to come in and walk around in.
“There will be a better air quality as well, and maybe it’ll help with the smell from pigs because at the moment, you get the whiff no matter where you are.”
John Martin Fitzgerald, who has worked in his family’s Fitzgerald's Funeral Home on Fitzgerald St in the town since he was 16 in 1963, welcomes the bypass but has one enduring wish for the town off the back of it.
“I’m an old man now but the younger generation must now be making strides,” the 74-year-old said.
“When the bypass comes, it will change the face of Macroom and it will need to be marketed to bring in all sorts of different shops.
“And you must remember, we'll only be around 20 minutes from Cork.
“My wish is that the younger generation make the most of what will be a tremendous advantage to the town.”