Early road opening to ease town’s gridlock
Cork County Council has confirmed that the western relief road around Mitchelstown will be opened shortly after midday on July 3 by the Transport Minister Martin Cullen.
The relief road will open four months ahead of schedule and within its €10 million budget. It was originally hoped that the relief road would be opened in tandem with the new Fermoy bypass. Both are well ahead of schedule, with the latter expected to be open before Christmas.
A second bypass is to be built around Mitchelstown, to the west. However, this will take some years to complete as it was felt that opening the Fermoy bypass without some alleviating works in Mitchelstown would funnel traffic in there even faster and turn the town into a no-go zone for motorists.
The 4km-long relief road will join the N8 (main Cork-Dublin road) a mile south of the town, sweep eastwards across the Glanworth and Kildorrery roads and hook up with the main Limerick road at a roundabout behind the Firgrove Hotel. From there it will proceed across to rejoin the Dublin road just a few hundred metres north east of Cahir Hill.
“This new bypass will reduce journey times for both the haulage sector, and the public at large, by removing a major bottleneck on this national primary route,” said Mr Cullen.
A county council spokesman said they were delighted with the advanced completion of the road, adding that it will bring a much better quality of life to people in Mitchelstown.
He thanked the contractors, Roadbridge Ltd, and consultants, Mouchel Parkman Ireland Ltd and Punch & Partners, for their work in getting the relief road open well in advance of the October deadline.
An archaeological survey along the route identified four Bronze Age fulachta
fiadh or cooking sites, and a corn-drying kiln of suspected Early Medieval date. The remains of three suspected Bronze Age roundhouses were also revealed.
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