Bypass Ireland: Croom a 'shining light' as bypass injects new life into rural Limerick town

The Limerick village shows there is life in a town after being bypassed, as long as it remembers to put in a traffic management system, writes Neil Michael

Padraig Broderick owner of the Spar shop on Main Street, Croom, Co. Limerick. “The bypass allowed the town to breathe.” Photo: Dan Linehan

There is a lesson in Croom for anybody looking forward to a bypass around their town or village - don’t forget to put in a traffic management system.

When the Croom bypass was opened in June 2001, residents of the small Limerick town breathed a collective sigh of relief. Congestion had been an ever-worsening nightmare, with delays in getting through the town of up to 45 minutes – and that was just to get in and out.

That vanished almost overnight but while the bypass worked a treat, nobody seemed to be prepared for what happened next. In the years that followed, prosperity in one form or another, added to the lack of public transport, led to more residents owning cars, and, ultimately, increased congestion.

It has become such a problem that a new traffic management system had to be put into place recently, and that has eased things. But while traffic levels have been increasing, as they are in other towns that got a bypass, they are nowhere near as bad as they were.

(Left to right) Tony Glynn, Sam Milburn and Chairman of the Croom Mens Shed Daniel Hogan in their woodwork room. Photo: Dan Linehan

Croom Men's Shed chair Dan Hogan, who lives in the town at The Square, shudders at the thought of it. “Often before the bypass, when I’d be leaving my house to get through the town, I’d be wondering to myself, is there any way to bypass this place?” he said.

“The congestion was terrible. You’d often be half an hour just getting through the town. One of the worst parts was the turn by the Post Office, where the High Street meets the Main Street.

“Often, you’d have two lorries meeting there in opposite directions and you’d get a bottleneck. It would just be a nightmare.” 

He is in no doubt as to the benefits.

Mr Hogan says there is more of a community feel to the place, with more people from the surrounding area coming into the town to do their shopping.

“It is a much busier town for trade and for the local shops,” he said.

People are more inclined to do their shopping here now.

The bypass is a 6.1km stretch west of Croom that cost the equivalent of around €23m. Traffic both ways between Limerick and Cork meant delays of around 30-40 minutes.

But while trade picked up and the small town started to revive immediately after the bypass opened, it was hit by what was at the time a body blow - the loss of its two banks. Croom was one of 14 Ulster Bank branches nationwide that closed in 2015 and followed the closure in 2013 of the AIB bank branch in the town.

After the AIB branch had closed, many of its customers had moved their accounts to Ulster Bank. The closures were a devastating blow to locals, not just in the town but also in the surrounding areas like Fedamore and Kilfinny.

The closure of the banks added to a sense of doom that had followed the downgrading of the hospital and the closure of the county council office in the town. 

So worried were residents about the impact of the Ulster Bank branch’s closure in March 2015 that a few months beforehand some of them led a protest outside the bank. Among them was Croom undertaker, Donie Daffy, who brought up a coffin to the protest and it was laid out in front of the branch.

He said at the time that it was like a funeral and that the loss of the bank would be a “big blow” to local business. He predicted it would also force people to shop in other towns at a time when businesses in the town were finding it hard enough to survive with so many odds being stacked against them.

For a while, 48-year-old father of three Padraig Broderick - who now owns Croom Spar - was worried he could lose a business he had invested everything he had into. Originally from Kerry, he had started out by leasing the building the Spar was in in 2003 on the main street.

Then, three years later, he bought it with a €2.5m loan from the Ulster Bank next door to him. He also borrowed more money to invest in the business. Unfortunately for him, however, the crash happened and the value of the building he had borrowed to buy in the boom collapsed.

Despite the crash, the Spar, with its 32 staff, performed well, and he was able to guarantee 90% repayment of his debts.

He said:

The bypass, which happened before I arrived in the town, allowed the town to breathe.

“People from surrounding areas returned to shop in the town and businesses, like ours, benefited.” 

But by 2013, his arrangement with his Ulster Bank manager wasn’t good enough for Ulster Bank HQ and his debt - and those of other businesspeople - was sold to a private equity firm that specialised in buying up distressed loans.

“It was a strategic decision by the bank, not by the branch - who I got on great with,” he said.

Mr Broderick managed to extricate himself from the private equity fund by paying them off with a €1.5m loan he took out with another Irish bank, and he was able to carry on building up his business.

Not only that, in 2016, he was able to buy the empty Ulster Bank building next door to him.

“The extension that has since been built into the closed down branch is now up and running and is due to open officially in a few weeks' time,” he said.

“The off licence aspect of the business will be in the very offices where I had pleaded for better terms and more understanding on my loans after the crash.

“It’s not all that often you can say you bought your bank, but there it is.” 

In many respects, his fortunes mirror those of the town.

It, like him, fell on hard times during the recession, but it has revived and is thriving.

“We did have a number of vacant shops in the town, and there are one or two left, but they are due to be filled within the next 12 months or so,” he said.

“There is no doubt that the bypass has been a big success, so much so that we almost need another bypass because of the increase in people coming into the town.

“The big difference with the cars coming in is that they are coming in to shop here and use local services. They are not just clogging up the town to pass through.

“A new traffic management system has helped relieve a lot of the recent traffic problems.” 

The main aspect of this new system, which came in a few months ago, is that you can only park on one side of Main Street.

Parking is only available on one side of Main Street in Croom, Co. Limerick. Photo: Dan Linehan

Breda O’Dwyer is another person in no doubt of the benefits of the bypass. And as secretary of Croom GAA, she sees the success of the town mirrored in the success of the club.

“Before the bypass, I would say it was chaotic,” she says.

“The amount of traffic going to the village was very busy. It was crazy.

“Parking wasn't as much of a problem as it is now but then, there weren’t as many cars. I see more younger people having cars of their own so, that has definitely doubled the amount of traffic that would be going through Croom if the bypass wasn't there.” 

She doesn’t believe Croom has been a victim of its own success on the basis that it has had to initiate a new traffic management scheme to accommodate the rise in traffic.

“I think that's just natural progression,” she said.

“A traffic management system should have been done years ago with the bypass at the time.

“There just seems to be more cars on the road and everybody's driving, nobody walks.

“At the end of the day, I suppose the majority of people outside the town have no other choice but to drive in.” 

She says it speaks volumes for the town that it can field 147 children in U17, and scores more in the U19 and U21 categories.

Currently, the club - which has County and South Final wins to its credit - has U19 hurling and U19 football teams, U21 hurling and U21 football teams, as well as a Junior B football team, and an intermediate hurling and intermediate football team.

Breda O’Dwyer, secretary of Croom GAA Club. "If a town is thriving, one of the indications is the strength of its GAA club." Photo: Dan Linehan

Croom also has a Ladies Football team, which was started three years ago.

"If a town is thriving, one of the indications is the strength of its GAA club," she said.

Padraig Broderick believes Croom is a “shining example” of what rural towns can do, and he credits the Croom Development Association as being a catalyst for the town’s revival.

It has initiated a revamp of the town’s sports hall, created a large civic centre and restaurant in the town’s newly landscaped 13-acre town park. The Croom Development Association also created an Enterprise Centre.

“Croom is really evolving at an amazing rate,” Padraig said.

"Croom is proof that there is life after being bypassed, a much better quality one at that.”