National Primary Route 2

A high-quality road between Dublin and Derry is a long term goal for the island as a whole. Interest in building such a road, which could be motorway for the whole route, was floated in 2006. The Irish government offered to pay Northern Ireland 60% of the cost of their section, or around £340M, on the grounds that our section was useless without theirs. More progress is being made on the N.I. half of the works. A preferred route was announced in 2009. As of 2010, work was due to begin in 2012, though the economic crisis has put the brakes on since the Republic's contribution, now up to £400M, is unaffordable. The standard defined in NI is expressway, which in this context means a dual carriageway with no median breaks, grade separated major junctions and left-in left-out minor junctions.

The section through the Republic is unlikely to be motorway since it would not match the Northern section. The construction of the southern half has no completion date and will probably not be finished until the latter half of the 2010s. It is not yet defined where the connection point to the M1 will be: at Dundalk or Drogheda. For several reasons, I believe it is likely to be Dundalk:

• - The mileage is less


• - The dangerous N53 road gets a major upgrade


• - The N33 is already safe due to its high build quality so it does not need an upgrade


• - It is a more logical route if the intention is to serve the Newry-Dundalk-Drogheda corridor, as it is easier to access from there


• - If the proposed N34 is built, it will connect directly with it allowing Dundalk to be served by that route also

There is an unresolved issue with the numbering of routes. There are two possibilities:

• 1. The new route retains its current numbering, meaning that the N2 will continue to begin at Dublin and run to Monaghan via Ashbourne and Slane, and the part of the new route between Dundalk and Castleblayney will be numbered N53. The disadvantage of this approach is that the new route would be titled "N53/N2", which is awkward. Many motorists will assume the Dublin-based N2 is the primary route and continue to use it.


• 2. The N2 is downgraded between Dublin and Castleblayney and renumbered to something else (N53?). The new route is numbered N2 in full meaning that the N2 now starts at Dundalk, runs west, then rejoins the current alignment. The disadvantage of this approach is the huge amount of signage that would need to be amended and the familiarity problems this would present to Dubliners in particular.

Full information and the latest updates on the Northern Ireland part of this project are available here.

Wikipedia page on this road