New bridge means Leenane is back in business

Date Published: 02-Apr-2009

THE official opening of a new €1.65m bridge in Leenane this week brought the curtain down on an 18 month saga for the North Connemara village after the original crossing was dramatically washed away in flash floods.

But it was an altogether calmer occasion on Monday morning when the Mayor of the County of Galway, Cllr. Peter Feeney was joined by National Roads Authority Chief Executive Fred Barry and Galway County Manager Martina Moloney to officially open the new bridge.

The new bridge which is located on the N59 National Secondary Route between Clifden and Westport is a permanent replacement for the original bridge which collapsed in July 2007, at the height of the tourist season, following an extraordinary weather incident.

Mayor Peter Feeney said he was particularly conscious that the new structure was being unveiled ‘a mere twenty months after the collapse of the original bridge’, and he acknowledged what he called ‘the positive and proactive response of the Council, in reopening this vital tourist route, through the provision of a temporary bridge, within ten days of the incident in July 2007, and the speed at which a new permanent bridge, was designed and built.’

The Mayor highlighted the…