A wonderful achievement – so says a South Kilkenny councillor of the international recognition for the bridge that links the county with Wexford.
The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge is Ireland’s longest and spans the River Barrow from the Pink Rock in Glenmore.
It’s been named Outstanding Structure Award by the International Association for Bridge & Structural Engineers.
Cllr Fidelis Doherty says such a victory is important, telling KCLR News “It’s just a wonderful achievement and well done to the engineers, the designers, everybody that worked on it, it would have taken a big body of work to get the bridge to that very high standard and just to note the importance and significance of winning such a high award”.
She adds that it’s a winner with locals too and has been well received, noting “Extremely well, it’s cut a lot of time coming if you’re heading for Rosslare, there’s now 35 sailings a week into Rosslare, so it’s significant and it’s good infrastructure for the area and allows traffic to be diverted out of New Ross, now New Ross is still busy which is brilliant but it means that all the HGV and big lorries no longer travel along the quay of New Ross and out the Glenmore Road”.