Macroom campaigned for decades for a bypass. Was it worth the wait?
Quiet streets of Macroom. There are now periods during the day when there isn't even a car to disturb the Co Cork town's main street. Picture: Neil Michael
Once one of the country's most notorious bottlenecks, Macroom today is a very different town indeed.
Not only has the heavy traffic that once choked the town disappeared, but there are also now periods during the day when there isn't even a car to disturb the quiet of the Co Cork town's main street.
Strolling around, you can spot residents greeting each other from across the street — something that was impossible to do in the past when there was a constant stream of articulated trucks travelling through.
Since the bypass opened in December, the transformation has been little short of extraordinary, according to the town's residents. December 9 began with much fanfare as then Taoiseach Micheál Martin opened the 8km bypass but joy quickly turned to tragedy when news broke that an elderly woman had been killed crossing the main street just an hour before the official opening. Her death was a sad reminder of the dangers for pedestrians and other road users in a town that saw 700 HGVs pass through it daily.
Bill FitzGerald is one resident who is keen to stress how the bypass has made the town so much safer.
“Before the bypass, I wouldn’t let my 16-year-old son cycle through the town because it was too dangerous,” he said. “Now I do, and other kids are cycling through the town too. It’s as if the signs of what makes up a whole community have suddenly started to return.”
Bill and his father, Martin FitzGerald, are funeral directors and one simple consequence of the fact that the town is no longer gridlocked is that they are able to hold removals earlier.
“Before, you would have to hold them around 8pm to allow for people to be able to get through town,” Martin said.
“But now we are able to hold them around 6pm and 7pm, and that makes a big difference to families and mourners."
Martin believes that traffic volumes in the town have been halved since the bypass opened.
“Added to that, you can actually make a phone call while you are on the street. You don’t have the same loud traffic noise all the time, especially from the large trucks. I am also noticing the air is fresher around the town.”
As for how much cleaner the air actually is will be made public shortly.
Cork North West TD Aindrias Moynihan said: “Only last week I was asking about the results of the air quality testing done before and after the road was opened. They went to the UK to be measured and they are due back sometime soon. To me though the biggest difference has been the fact that the rattle of the trucks is not there anymore.
“There is obviously still traffic going through the town but it is mainly people who want to be in the town,” the TD says.
The residents of Macroom are a patient lot.
Those in the town, like Martin, who are old enough to remember, have been waiting for this bypass since the 1960s.
When, on October 17, 2019, the N22 Cork-Kerry road upgrade was given the green light, the then minister for agriculture Michael Creed — and local TD — said approval was a matter of “great personal satisfaction” for him after what he described as “decades of promises and false dawns”.
He had campaigned for the €280m upgrade of the N22 for years and finally managed to get the Cabinet to give approval to Cork County Council to award the contract for the scheme.
Construction began in 2020, and is due to be finished by the end of this year. Although Macroom has its bypass, a section bypassing Baile Bhuirne and the village of Ballymakeera — where residents and business people eagerly await its conclusion — has yet to be finished.
When complete, it will comprise a 22 km-long dual carriageway that begins west of Baile Bhuirne, passing north of Macroom to re-join the existing N22 south of Macroom.
It will cut around 20 to 30 minutes off commuting time between Cork and Kerry.
Already, people are noticing how the reduced travelling times getting in and out of Macroom are making the town more attractive.
Auctioneer Killian Lynch says the impact of the bypass has been almost instant.
“Some towns will be bypassed and there will be a two-year lull before things pick up again,” he said.
“We were expecting a lull in Macroom for maybe six months but the amount of traffic and the amount of people that are actually coming into town now, straightaway, and over Christmas, was fantastic.
“Now, traffic that is around town, in and out — they're all coming to do business.
“It's actually after superseding at a faster pace than what we thought it would.”
He remembers being warned to expect a “shock to the system” when cars and other vehicles stop coming through the town.
“There's plenty happening and there is plenty of traffic in and out.”
He said Macroom is now seeing people who would never before have spent time in the town.
He has also noticed the bypass has improved people's mood.
“People are generally in better form coming into meetings now, because they haven't been stuck in traffic,” he said.
“And you don’t get the usual conversation about how it was awful that they were stuck in traffic, and how desperate it was.
“There's no talk about that anymore.
“Now it's all talk of how brilliant it is, and how it's so easy to get into town.”
He said that while some may fear Macroom will just end up as a dormitory town to Cork city, he doesn’t believe that will happen.
In its favour is the fact that it has such a large hinterland, with people who are now being encouraged by the bypass to come into the town and shop.
He says that while the town’s services and leisure amenities are already in place, Macroom will always be a healthy market town.
Of the amenities, he is thinking about the promised greenway, and the local golf club, which is just five minutes from the town square.
He expects queries from people wanting to join the golf club to increase, especially in the run-up to the summer months.
Also, unlike many post-Celtic Tiger Ireland towns, Macroom’s GAA pitch is also very near the centre of town.
“That's what it will be,” he said. “A thriving market town.
“It has the services, and has the amenities and now that we have the bypass, a lot of opportunities are opening up.”
Caitríona Healy O'Brien of Enchanted Flowers said: "In the past people would come in and get what they wanted to do and get out again because of the traffic.
"They wouldn't stick around. Now they are getting to do what they want to do in a much shorter amount of time, so they have time to walk around the shops."
Another bonus of the bypass is that the centre of the town smells better on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
Before the bypass, sheep and cattle could be sitting in cattle trucks or other vehicles for as long as any other motorist was delayed, and that would lead invariably to the odour of animal excrement wafting around the place.
From an animal welfare point of view, the fact that the animals can be brought to and from the Macroom Mart faster is also a bonus.
“That's (smell) gone,” Macroom Livestock Mart Manager Jerh O'Sullivan said.
“The only livestock trucks that come toward in and out of the town at the moment are the ones that are just accessing the livestock market here on a Saturday, and on a Wednesday for our sheep sale.
“Outside of that there are no heavy goods vehicles of any sort going through the town that don't need to go through the town.
Humphrey Lynch's family bakery — Lynch’s Bakery and Confectionary — has been open for 152 years.
“I used to meet people anywhere in the country and they would ask: ‘Where are you from’, and when I’d tell them, they would say ‘it’s a lovely town but we hate passing through it,’.
“Now we are noticing people stopping here and going shopping either after or before coming in to us.
“It’s because they can park, and not only that, they can park near the centre without having some huge truck coming up behind them.
“We are much busier now since the bypass opened but I was only saying to my family, who run the business with me, that I hope it doesn’t get any busier because we just wouldn’t be able to handle it.”
The 74-year-old, who has worked in the bakery since 1963, took it over after his father Billy died. “This is a great news story for Macroom. We have waited for a very long time for this road, and I — and others — have been calling for it for as long as I can remember.
“Now that we have it, it is better late than never.”
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