A chara, – As a Donegal man, I would love to share the sentiment of Liam Ó Cuinneagáin (January 5th) and hope that travelling from Dublin to the northwest could be as easy as to any of the other corner of Ireland. The sad reality is that it is not.
I recently spent the Christmas period visiting both family at home and friends around the country. Trips to and between Dublin, Sligo, the midlands and Limerick were a doddle on the excellent Irish Rail network. Getting to Letterkenny involved a long and tedious bus journey, even with the benefit of taking the Dublin Port Tunnel out of the city and the M1 as far as Co Louth. Hit the Border counties and the tedium returns.
Meanwhile, those driving in the south of the island benefit from the excellent motorway network put in place during the boom years. The recent withdrawal of funding for the upgrade of the corridor from Monaghan to Derry and Letterkenny (in partnership with the UK) will do nothing to close this gap, and it looks like a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make this beautiful part of the country more easily accessible from Dublin – and vice versa – has been lost.
Donegal may be “only up the road”, but at times it might as well be in another country. – Is mise,