A Bridge to Royal County Down

Last week the folks in Northern Ireland stumped up their portion of the cash to build a bridge from county Louth to county Down.

An 'artist's' impression

The scheme will provide a new single carriageway link between Omeath and Warrenpoint, connecting the R173 Omeath Road and the A2 dual carriageway across the Newry River at Narrow Water. 

Why is this newsworthy on a golf blog?

Because it will make one of the world's greatest golf courses even easier to reach from Dublin. Royal County Down is roughly an hour and three quarters from Dublin, at the moment, but the bridge would side-step Newry and knock a healthy chunk of time off that 105 minutes... maybe 15 minutes, maybe more.

Dad plays into the 2nd at Royal County Down (Feb 2012).

The length of the cable-stayed bridge will be 195 metres and it should/could be open as early as 2015.

Personally, I'd like to see it launched by Failte Ireland, with Rory McIlroy on one shore and Padraig Harrington on the other, driving balls across the Narrow Water... anytime one of the boys fails to carry the sea, a politician from the opposite shore has to jump in and swim across to the other side.

It would certainly capture the media's attention.