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Roads To Nowhere

Criss-crossing the North with unnecessary roads was always a waste of money. With the economy cratering both sides of the border, perhaps the folly will finally be abandoned.

Eamonn McCann, 02 Mar 2011

Now that the gab-fest is over, what chance the A5 will run out of road?

The idea of gouging a dual carriageway across the North was dreamt up at “peace talks” at St. Andrews in October 2006 as a sweetener for Nationalist parties being pressed to give backing to the cops. Bertie Ahern promised that Southern taxpayers would pick up half the tab – around €480 million. Sinn Féin and the SDLP hailed the pledge as a practical example of the sort of cross-border co-operation now set to transform the entire island.

The planned route from Derry to the border at Aughnacloy: the Newtownstewart bypass, completed in 2002 at just under €10 million; the second stage of the Strabane bypass, finished in 2003 for more than €5 million; and the third phase of the Omagh throughpass, finished 2006, cost €12 million.

Opponents of the scheme include hippies, badger-lovers, DUP farmers, Trotskyists, rail enthusiasts, environmentalists and folk with an attachment to rationality.

The project would involve the take-over of 4,000 acres of farmland and splitting farms all along the 50-mile route. Entire local co-systems would be bulldozed and glorious pieces of built heritage damaged to their foundations. Trucks pounding along the carriageway would pass within 50 metres of Harry Avery’s Castle, named after Aonraí Aimhbreidh O’Neill (died 1392), a very rare structure – few Gaelic chieftains built stone castles – with two imposing D-shaped towers, a sight of mystical beauty when silhouetted against a sunset. It won’t have rated a glance from the planners as they plotted laying concrete across the terrain.

However, help may be at hand. The Labour Party’s Joe Costello argued in the course of the campaign that at a time when Ireland cannot afford minimal decency for its own most vulnerable citizens, it makes no sense to bung half a billion to a vanity scheme for the North.

It wouldn’t be the first promise to the North that Dublin has welshed on, but may be the first that such a broad range of Northerners fervently hope will be welshed on. Go to it, Joe!



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Eamonn McCann

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