Corrib ferry plan aimed at alleviating traffic

The delay with the Galway City Bypass has this week turned the spotlight on an alternative project to relieve traffic that was mooted almost 40 years ago.

It would involve a bridge over Lough Corrib that would effectively link Headford with Moycullen and Oughterard – or more realistically a car ferry service that could take up to 300 cars across the lake every hour.

The debate took to the airwaves this week on Galway Bay fm’s Keith Finnegan Show, where the presenter even managed to secure a potential operator for the service from Knockferry to Headford.

Shannon Ferries chief executive Eugene Maher – the man who heads the company which already runs the Killimor to Tarbert crossing of the Shannon estuary – has a ferry ready to go into service if the state gives it the green light.

The difficulty however is that – to remove traffic chaos from the N59 – you would significantly increase car numbers on the approach to the pier at Knockferry or at Kilbeg on the Headford side of the lake.

This mirrors the difficulties encountered with a similar proposal back in 2006, when the plan was granted planning permission by Galway County Council.

The decision was appealed to An Bord Pleanala by An Taisce and a number of residents living in Collinamuck, near Moycullen.

The Board overturned the decision of the local authority on the grounds that the roads accessing the crossings at Kilbeg on the Headford side to Knockferry on the Moycullen side were substandard for the volume of traffic that would be using them.

The Corrib crossing saga dates back to the late 1970s – and into the 1990s – when the provision of a bridge to link Headford with Moycullen and Oughterard regularly raised its head in Dail debates.

There was even a commitment from former Fine Gael leader John Bruton that he would deliver on a Kilbeg/Knockferry bridge if the party were returned to power.

Cllr Thomas Welby from Oughterard recalls the lengthy debates about the issue, when his late father also Cllr Tom Welby was on Galway County Council. “I think the cost of the bridge was around €1 million at the time”.

Asked by Keith Finnegan should it be looked into again, he replied: “We need a connection across the Corrib. There are lots of projects but they seem to be hampered by environmental issues”.

The bridge over the Corrib was even discussed on countless by the late Bobby Molloy in the Dail during the eighties.

He was anxious to provide a link between West Galway and North Galway and South Mayo without going through the city.

In the mid-nineties former TD for Galway West Frank Fahey raised it again on several occasions and he was of the opinion that it was a worthwhile project.

“The Kilbeg/Knockferry Bridge has been a long-running saga in Galway for many years. I raise it this evening because it is time we had a definitive decision from the Government, one way or the other, on this project.

“The people of Connemara and, particularly, of Headford deserve to know once and for all the exact thinking of the Government on the provision of this facility, which has been promoted in Galway for a long number of years.

“While I accept the point I am sure the Minister will make that the project is very expensive, when one looks at the impact it would have for Connemara and North Galway, there is no doubt that the cost involved would be insignificant in the long term.

“We are talking about building a bridge across the narrowest point of the Corrib, which is estimated to cost about £4 million. If the Minister has any better “guesstimates” than that, I am anxious to hear them”, he said at the time.