The N25 Kinsalebeg upgrade, 2005-6
In 2005-6, Ireland's National Roads Authority, working with Waterford County Council, upgraded 2.6 kilometres of the N25 Cork-to-Rosslare national route at Kinsalebeg, in the area between Clashmore and Pilltown.
The existing road had formed part of a section of highway cut through the fields at the time of the completion of the first Youghal bridge in 1832 to establish a connection with the existing Waterford highway network. The commissioners (board of directors) who erected that first bridge had operated under severe financial pressure, and this probably explained why their new stretch of road was constructed within relatively narrow limits.[1] It was another Youghal project, the completion of the N25 bypass completed in 2003, that added some sense of urgency to the tackling of the Kinsalebeg pinchpoint.[2] The upgrade here was relatively unusual in being a road-widening scheme rather than a complete realignment, as had been the case, for instance, at the 8.4 kilometre Kilmacthomas scheme completed in 2001.
As indicated in the photograph, the road-widening required one-way systems controlled by automated traffic lights. At times, especially during the heavy traffic of the summer holiday period, the fact that these lights were unsupervised encouraged some remarkably ill-mannered driving. There are motorists who operate on the principle that, when a traffic light turns red, the second or third oncoming car should consider the possibility of stopping. At times, this anarchic attitude resulted in a continuous stream of traffic simply ignoring the fact that the light had changed, leaving people hoping to travel in the opposite direction facing a wall of traffic that blocked their green-light allocation. There were complaints that, in hot weather, children suffered while stranded for long periods in immobile and overheated cars. Perhaps predictably, there were drivers who sought to avoid the blockage by taking minor roads that were unsuitable for heavy traffic. Some evidently turned off at random and in desperation with no knowledge of where they were going.
The first sod for the upgrade was turned on 7 November 2005. The project was expected to continue into the spring of 2007, but was in fact completed before the end of 2006. The cost was estimated in advance at about €10 million. As at Kilmacthomas and with most of the Youghal bypass, the upgrade was to a wider but still single-carriageway road. Fortunately, the demolition of only two small roadside cottages was required. An overpass was constructed at the junction with the R672 road to Clashmore (and, eventually, Clonmel), although with only a single access ramp. The Minister for Transport at the time, Deputy Martin Cullen, was a Waterford TD. It was unusual for the constituency to have cabinet representation, and local opinion attributed the priority given to the project and some of its features, such as the overpass, to ministerial influence.
As part of the preparations, between May and June 2005, archaeologists surveyed the ground to be incorporated into the widened road and identified eight sites of interest. One of these was a fulacht fiadh, located in the lower right corner of the accompanying photograph (but covered by the time it was taken). This was an open-air cooking site of a type used in the Bronze Age. No associated finds emerged that might have indicated a precise date, but it may be assumed to have been about two thousand five hundred years old.[3] Rescue archaeology is a valuable preliminary to major projects which will necessary destroy ancient sites, but the fact that investigations were necessarily limited to the long narrow strip of ground acquired for road widening can be frustrating. It is reasonable to assume that Bronze Age people would have lived close to their cooking site, but no traces of habitation were discovered: they may survive in the fields nearby. During the preparatory phase, there were also rumours that a protected species had been identified at part of the proposed site, giving rise to grim jokes about the three-legged parrot of Pilltown. However, the scheme was not delayed and I have found no reference to this in the Internet record.
The photograph was taken at the south side of the Pillpark junction of what is now classified as L6044, in the townland of Shanacoole. As the trees and shadows indicate, the time was about midday and probably in December or January, evidently at an early stage of the project. The view to the east shows vehicles queueing for the temporary traffic lights at a quiet time: one car has its hazard lights flashing to warn drivers who may have missed the unobtrusive warning sign in the corner of the picture.[4]
No doubt Kinsalebeg was fortunate to receive its upgrade when it did. Two years later, a global financial crisis put an end to major capital investment as Ireland was forced to shoulder astronomical debts created by irresponsible bankers. Two decades later, the fact that the N25 is a through route of national importance between Cork and Rosslare still commands little sense of priority in transport policy-making. In particular, the east Cork villages of Castlemartyr and Killeagh remain bottlenecks waiting for easily constructed bypasses which are stuck in the arthritic early stages of tortoise-like planning.
The slow emergence of the concept of the N25 as Ireland's south-coast route is examined at greater length in "The Castlemartyr bypass: historical roots of a failure in government": https://www.gedmartin.net/martinalia-mainmenu-3/442-castlemartyr-bypass.
ENDNOTES The National Roads Authority became part of Transport Infrastucture Ireland (TII) in 2015.
[1] The story of the three Youghal bridges, and their relationship to the Waterford road network, is explored in https://www.gedmartin.net/martinalia-mainmenu-3/442-castlemartyr-bypass.
[2] The upgrade did not tackle the seawall stretch in the townland of Tiknock, where part of the wall had suffered storm damage in 2003: https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/2023-10-18/8/. This remains a bottleneck.
[3] https://www.tii.ie/media/lmbldwqs/n25-kinsalebeg-realignment-county-waterford.pdf.
[4] Other photographs showing the road before work commenced are on the Facebook page of the Clashmore Kinsalebeg Heritage Group: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=650275263934375&set=pcb.650278600600708.