The Adare bypass: fixing a bottleneck for the public or golfers? The local view from Co Limerick

In the small village of Adare, Co Limerick, locals are happy with newly announced plans to build a much-needed bypass, removing one of the worst traffic bottlenecks in the country.

This week, Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan said the Government would set aside €150 million for the 7km Adare bypass that would ensure its completion in time for the Ryder Cup in September 2027.

Cynics might see the funding as proof of the golf elite’s power after years of lobbying by locals failed to win approval, but those same locals don’t view it in those terms – nor those charged with building it.

The bypass is part of a Transport Infrastructure Ireland upgrade of the 35km N21 Foynes-to-Limerick road involving the construction of a 17.5km motorway from Attyflin near Patrickswell, just outside Limerick city, to Rathkeale, and a 15.6km dual carriageway from Rathkeale on to Foynes.

‘When we advertised for engineering consultants to undertake the planning, design and environmental assessment of the proposed development almost 10 years ago, there was no talk of the Ryder Cup in Adare then’

—  Limerick City and County Council senior engineer Tim Fitzgerald

Limerick City and County Council senior engineer Tim Fitzgerald said the project, which began in 2014 when the council engaged engineering consultants, long predates talk of Adare hosting the Ryder Cup.

“When we advertised for engineering consultants to undertake the planning, design and environmental assessment of the proposed development almost 10 years ago, there was no talk of the Ryder Cup in Adare then and we didn’t know where the route was going to be,” he said.

Foynes is regarded as a port of national significance and under an EU transport network policy initiative, connectivity with such ports has to be improved, he said.

“So the project is aimed at providing high-quality connectivity between Foynes and the national road network around Limerick,” he said.

Locals in Adare take a similarly broad view, seeing it as part of the overall Limerick-Foynes upgrade.

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While they acknowledge that the Ryder Cup, to be held in Adare in 2027, may have given it an extra impetus, they are not complaining and are just relieved that work is finally about to begin on the project.

Local Fianna Fáil council Bridie Collins, chairwoman of Adare Tidy Towns and a native of Donegal, first moved to the historic village over 35 years ago. For as long as she has lived there, there have been calls for a bypass.

“When I was first elected to the council in 2019, I had a discussion with senior council executives who told me that the minimum volume of traffic required for a dual carriageway was 11,000,” she says.

“Well, we have over 17,000 vehicles a day going through the town and if you take a Bank Holiday Friday or a Bank Holiday Monday, it goes up to 24,000 or 25,000 with the number of people heading from Limerick or indeed from Dublin down to Kerry, so there is serious traffic congestion.”

She says congestion can start as early as 6.30am and people can spend up to 30 minutes stuck in the village until the traffic clears at around 9.15am. It is the same in the afternoon, from 4pm until 6.30pm.

‘As somebody living on the main street of Adare, I know how badly needed it is; I am watching older people and schoolchildren who have difficulty traversing the street because of the volume of traffic’

—  Local Fianna Fáil council Bridie Collins

“The bypass will be of huge benefit to the village but not just the village; we have over 1,200 living in the village but there are about 2,500 living in the immediate hinterland, and they are affected because people use local roads as rat runs trying to avoid the congestion in the village,” she says.

Cllr Collins concedes that the Ryder Cup may be bringing forward the building of the bypass but she is pleased it is coming, because she can see first-hand how it is needed.

“As somebody living on the main street of Adare, I know how badly needed it is; I am watching older people and schoolchildren who have difficulty traversing the street because of the volume of traffic,” she says.

[ The family story behind the building of Adare Manor ]

Louis Murphy, general manager of the Dunraven Arms Hotel, says the bypass will be a game changer for Adare; it will make it easier for people to find parking in the village, with fewer cars and trucks passing along main street, ensuring the days of dreadful congestion are a thing of the past.

“It’s going to be a huge plus for the village – people used to get frustrated being stuck in a queue, because we do have thousands of cars going through here every day,” he says.

“It’s fantastic, it’s going to bring more people into the village. It was always going to come but the Ryder Cup probably helped it.”

Carmel Collins, who with her husband, James runs the Adare Pharmacy, says that one benefit will be an improvement in air quality, as traffic congestion with slow-moving vehicles adds to asthma and COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] cases among people attending the pharmacy.

“You need to look at the bigger picture: the Ryder Cup has been a huge motivation to get the bypass over the line. You have to be realistic and whatever the factors are that get a project like this approved, you just take it,” she said.

Martin Ryan grew up in Adare and says that in the late 1960s traffic volumes were so low that he could remember as a child playing hurling and football on the main street; the last 30 years has seen a huge increase in traffic, making the bypass an imperative.

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“Everyone thinks this is just for the Ryder Cup, but we’ve been looking for a bypass here for the last 50 years. Irrespective of the Ryder Cup, it’s badly needed, though obviously the Ryder Cup helped us getting it because with the way the planning is going, we could be waiting another 10 years,” he said.

Fitzgerald, the senior engineer, says the bypass will shave 15 minutes off travel times but it will be a major construction project requiring 25 new under-bridges or over-bridges, including a 200-metre bridge over the river Maigue. Completing it in time for the Ryder Cup will be a major challenge.

“There’s a lot of enabling work to be done, diversion of utilities like gas and electricity, and much of that will take place in 2024 and the aim is to have a contractor on site at the start of 2025,” he said.

“It’s a challenging target but with a fair wind behind us, we could actually achieve it for September 2027.”