Traffic jams will return to  Macroom, say protesters

Cavalcade of more than 100 trucks, tractors, and cars slows traffic in protest over slip-road access to bypass

Drivers line up at Carrigaphooka prior to the protest along the Macroom bypass. Picture: Jim Coughlan

“The people of Macroom will get a very big shock once all this traffic starts filtering back through the town again.” 

That was the message from protesters who slowed traffic on the N22 on Saturday with a cavalcade of more than 100 trucks, tractors, and cars, giving a flavour of the congestion they say will return to the town when a new section of bypass opens next week, curtailing local access.

An 8km section of dual carriageway between Carrigaphooka, west of Macroom, and Tún Lán, east of Baile Mhic Íre, opens on Friday, bypassing notorious “bad bends” near Lissacreasig. This is the second phase of the bypass, the initial section near Macroom being opened by then-taoiseach Micheál Martin days before leaving office last December.

To facilitate the opening of this new section, the bypass will be partially closed on Tuesday to Friday and a temporary roundabout at Carrigaphooka, where the bypass meets the old road, will be removed.

Bernard Thompson, Michael O'Connell, Seamus Kelleher, Jo Watkinson, and Paul and Sean Lehane were among those at the Macroom protest. Picture: Jim Coughlan

“Once the temporary roundabout at Carrigaphooka is removed there will be no access from that stretch of road,” said Aileen Lehane of Cill na Martra, who joined this morning’s protest.

“It’s going to affect a lot of people between Baile Mhúirne and Macroom back as far as Ballingeary. 

It will bring more heavy traffic back into the town and will undo all the good that’s been done so far.

Campaigners are adamant that access between Macroom and Baile Mhic Íre was included in earlier plans for the bypass, though no junction was shown on drawings in a public notice published in 2009 and provided to the Irish Examiner  by the office of Fine Gael TD Michael Creed.

A cavalcade of more than 100 trucks, tractors, and cars assembled to give a flavour of the congestion protesters say will return to Macroom when a new section of bypass opens next week, curtailing local access. Picture: Jim Coughlan

“I use the road every day with my trucks and machinery,” said plant hire operator Michael O’Connell. “We’re going to have to go straight into Macroom town and it’s going to create serious traffic jams again, like it was before.”

Réidh na nDoirí lorry driver Seán Lynch added: “There’ll be a line of traffic from the graveyard down to the town again."

Commuter Paul Kelleher said: “From my house there’s two cars go to Cork every morning and both of them at the moment use the bypass.” 

“When this roundabout is taken away, neither of us will be using it and we’ll both be going back through Macroom again. 

"That would be a fair representation of a lot of households, five days a week.

Protesters at Carrigaphooka, near Macroom, Co Cork. Picture: Jim Coughlan

“We’ve seen the benefits of it for the last few months and it’s knocking 20 minutes off your journey every day. That’s all going to be gone again.

“Two slip roads on a bypass is not a big ask. [Access] was in the original plans. I did see the original plans but in the final ones that went through, it wasn’t in them.” 

Fianna Fáil TD Aindrias Moynihan, who attended the protest, said: “People feel very much that they’re being isolated and they want to make sure that their voice is heard. I think it’s very reasonable that they want to do that.

“The responses we’ve been getting from the likes of the minister for transport have been very unhelpful. He was saying that there wasn’t a plan [for access at Carrigaphooka] but I don’t feel people are prepared to just walk away from it. 

"I’m here to back the people of Cill na Martra, Réidh na nDoirí and beyond.” 

He said he was initially “not aware” of the absence of access at Carrigaphooka in the final bypass design and it was his “understanding and the expectation of so many people locally” that it had been included.