The N22 and N25 Southern Ring upgrades are designed to create a motorway ring around Cork city. Cork will have the M20 entering from the northwest and the M8 from the northeast. With some judicious changes on the N25 southern ring road and the future N22 northern ring road, an M22/M25 ring could be created, and possibly renumbered. The N25 as far east as Midleton would be up to scratch too, as would the N22 up to Macroom to the west. Cork would then be at the centre of nearly as many motorways as Dublin - the M8, M20, M22, and M25. Notably, all of these would actually connect with the ring road, unlike at Dublin where the joins are via lower standard DC sections. In order to achieve all this, some junction upgrades or reconfiguration would be needed for the N22 and N25 sections encircling Cork.

There are three schemes in the pipeline that will lay most of the groundwork for this redesignation:

• - Grade separation of Sarsfield and Bandon Rd roundabouts


• - Reconstruction of Dunkettle interchange


• - Upgrade of Cork-Midleton road to HQDC standard

Since most of these projects are planned for the near future, the likelihood of an M25 along this routing is quite high.

Please give your opinion on this road proposal. Rate it out of 10, and whether you think the standard (road width) is appropriate.

Wikipedia page on this road