‘The town is bottled up’: Galway residents share mixed views on whether ring road will be good for city

Like many Galwegians, Brendan Holland’s reaction to news that the final legal challenge to the Galway City Ring Road has been removed was mixed.

“I have a gut feeling that it is going to change the whole character of the city I grew up in,” said the 72-year-old newsagent on Williamsgate Street.

“The city I grew up in was small, intimate, with community involvement. My fear now is the city will sprawl out, and it’s going to develop outside the ring road and inside the ring road, and the road is going to be a barrier between rural people and city people.”

Wearing his other hat, as chair of the Gluas committee, a group lobbying for light rail in Galway, Holland believes the ring road won’t solve the city’s well-documented traffic woes.

“I always got the impression that [light rail] was playing second fiddle to the ring road in terms of the people in power,” he said.

Holland acknowledges the ring road will benefit hospitality businesses in Connemara and motorists whose final destination is beyond Galway City.

He’s not convinced, however, that it is the answer to the “traffic nightmare for the vast majority of commuters that don’t need to use the ring road”.

“A cynic once told me the ring road would be brilliant for the ‘D4s’ living in Dublin who have houses in Roundstone,” he said.

“Now that’s a cynic...it will have a major effect on Galway, city and county, positive and negative.”

John Mulligan, a vet based in Bearna to the west of the city, who serves Connemara, said he doesn’t take on many clients in east Galway due to the city’s traffic problems.

He is delighted the road is progressing.

“I don’t want to go through Galway City to get to the far side. We can’t go south to go around the town; that’s into the bay. We can’t go north, because that’s into the lake.

“Everything has to go through the pinch-point of a small medieval city and that’s what’s killing us,” he said.

“I’ve no aversion to light rail ... do it all. But if a lad is coming down from Dublin to the mart in Clifden to buy a horse, does he need to go up Merchant’s Road [through the city centre]?”

Mike Gannon, a resident of Raleigh Row in Galway city, said he cycled more than he drove and is “delighted the last objector has got off the pitch”.

He said that it was “time we got with” building the ring road.

“It will work if people are sensible enough to use it wisely. They have to change their mindset in terms of driving around the city centre,” said Gannon.

[ ‘They are killing our community’: Over 40 homes face demolition for Galway ring roadOpens in new window ]

“To improve the chances of that happening, you need to improve infrastructure, and local [public] transport needs to smarten up. I think with less traffic around, there will be more and more cycling, and why shouldn’t there be?”

Tom Nally, a barber based on High Street in the city centre, believes the ring road saga has “gone on far too long”.

His home at Boleybeg, Bearna, was due for demolition over two decades ago to make way for the original iteration of the ring road: the Galway City Outer Bypass.

That plan was scrapped in favour of another route beside his house, “which was even worse”. That road plan also fell by the wayside due to legal and planning difficulties.

Nally said he thought the current ring road was “not far enough out, and by the time it’s done we’ll need another outer bypass”.

“We better get started on it as soon as possible, it’s needed badly,” he said. “The town is bottled up – everyone is complaining about traffic.”