National Primary Route 6

The road from Dublin to Galway is around 200 kilometres long and uses the M4 motorway for the first 60 km, and the M6 for the remainder. The M6 starts at the M4/M6 divide and heads west.

The old N6 used to pass through a series of Dublin commuter towns such as Rochfordbridge and Tyrellstown until a dual carriageway was opened in December 2006 as far as Tyrellstown, and Kilbeggan in May 2007. More dormitaries were next such as the infamous Moate, before the road finally reached the large midlands town of Athlone. This section was replaced by a new dual carriageway in July 2008. In September 2008, the new dual carriageway sections were all designated M6 and were subjected to motorway conditions.

Athlone was bypassed with a cheap grade-separated dual carriageway way back in June 1991, replacing a detour through the town's winding streets. To ever make this a motorway, some work would need to be done to improve the short ramps, and possibly add weaving lanes. The bypass is riddled with 6 interchanges even though it's only 9 kilometres long. Sure enough, the bypass was left as a dual carriageway in the motorway redesignation round that was implemented in August 2009. There is no timeframe for an improvement, if indeed any will ever occur.

The old N6 gets progressively quieter as one continues further west. It winds it way down to the town of Ballinasloe, squeezing over a bridge and an S-bend, before starting its long lonely journey southwest to the distant town of Loughrea. From there, it covers around the same distance again before finally reaching the outskirts of Galway.

A long time ago, the N6 (or T4 as it was then known) took a more direct route from Ballinasloe to Galway, heading directly west via Athenry. This road is now only a minor regional called R348. Work on completing the new M6 alignment of the N6 was finally brought to a close on 13th December 2009. The Athlone-Ballinasloe section, including a bypass of Ballinasloe, had been first, in July 2009. The long Ballinasloe-Galway section followed a few months later, bringing the Dublin-Galway journey time (from outskirts to outskirts) down to below 2 hours. The new road does not parallel the old N6, but instead follows the even older Athenry route. It is also noteworthy that the last section, specifically the part from Galway to west of Ballinasloe, is tolled.

In the outskirts of Galway, the N6, both existing and future, ends in the townland of Rosscam. The existing route intersects the north-south N18 Galway-Limerick road at the town of Oranmore before using a new dual carriageway route built in the 1990s to enter the city from the north. The new route, not a motorway but a dual carriageway, will end at the townland of Doughiska but a bypass will skirt the city to the north further out, before finally coming to an end at the N59 northwest of the city. This represents a scaling back of the original route which would have terminated west of Barna on the coast a long way to the west of the city.

The bypass is controversial as it will sever the Gaeltacht suburb of Menlough and other areas from the rest of the city. This and other issues have delayed it by years and it has not been listed as a part of the interurban motorway network - and therefore won't be completed before 2010. Even the scaled back version of the bypass was only granted planning permission in December 2008. Realistically, this final piece of the puzzle is unlikely to be driveable until at least 2015.

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