The road from Dublin to Sligo is around 200 kilometres long and uses the M4 motorway for the first 60 km, and the N4 for the remainder which varies from a grade separated dual carriageway to a single. Starting from the N4/M50 interchange, upgraded from a be-trafficlighted roundabout to a hybrid stack/cloverleaf interchange in 2008, the road runs as a 3-lane dual carriageway past the private school King's Hospital and the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, before bypassing the suburb of Lucan. The M50 to Lucan section was built on the cheap around mid-1984. The Lucan Bypass section, with a bit more money spent on it, was completed in 1988, severing the old village to the north from the newer areas in the south. The old route ran straight through the town's narrow streets. An old tramline once ran on these streets too, sadly removed many decades ago. Back on the new road, the Spa Hotel (named after a water spa) comes into view on the left just before the motorway section begins. The road runs very close to the Liffey at this point too, which passes just to the north.
In July 2009, a major project was completed which upgraded all of this route to 6 lanes, closed off most local accesses, and finally eliminated the cheap Adamstown/Newcastle Rd traffic light junction in the middle.
The old road ran onwards to the town of Leixlip, crossing the Liffey, ascending a steep hill, and crossing the Royal Canal, a very long canal which runs all the way from Dublin city centre to the oddly-titled River Inny in the midlands where it eventually ends up in Lough Ree. After the canal, it passed the sprawling Intel campus (largest in the world outside North America) and entered the town of Maynooth via a long, straight road. The town is famous for its university and lively student population. The next town was the sleepy village of Kilcock.
A 17.6 km motorway replacement for this whole route was opened in 1994. An extra intermediate junction 2A was added
in February 2003, primarily to serve major industries to the west of Leixlip such as Intel.
The N4/M4 route used to continue through the countryside and the small village of Enfield before reaching Kinnegad. At this town, the N4 continues northwest, while a new road is spawned, the N6, and heads southwest. The town had a name as a traffic blackspot as far back as 30 years ago, especially on bank holiday weekends when Dubliners would traditionally head down the country for a few days. The whole section from Kilcock to Kinnegad was replaced by a winding, tolled, 37 km westward extension of the M4 in December 2005.
Veering northwest after Kinnegad, the N4 continues as a dual carriageway as far as the large midlands town of Mullingar. The town was bypassed with good quality grade separated dual carriageway bypass in 1994, with the tie-in to the M4/M6 area added in July 2005.
Beyond this town, there are no further large towns. A series of villages such as the charmingly titled Edgeworthstown are encountered in the long, empty run up to Longford. It is eventually intended to replace the entire Mullingar-Longford stretch with a HQDC, though there is no timeframe for this.
The N4 then passes through the town of Longford, certainly a town that has suffered more than many from the effects of congestion and truck traffic thundering through its thoroughfares. Road surfaces in the town are perpetually falling apart, getting eroded shortly after repair by high traffic volumes. The town serves as the gore between the N4 heading up to Sligo, and the N5 heading west to Westport on the coast. A single-carriageway bypass was opened many years ago, but this only rerouted the N4, not the N5. It will take a fair amount of effort to sort out this town's unfortunate lack of investment given its crucial position on the country's road network.
The run up to Sligo is marked by a series of pleasant, small towns: Carrick-on-Shannon, the amusingly-titled Rooskey, the very hot Boyle, and the crazy-sounding Collooney. Many of these are due to be bypassed with low standard dual in the next few years - Rooskey's bypass opened in December 2007. From Collooney, grade separated dual opened in 1998 and an Inner Bypass opened in September 2005 completes the journey, ending up at the small junction at which it meets the N15 up to Donegal and the N16 to Northern Ireland and Enniskillen.
On 6th October 2010, the country's third MSA (Motorway Service Area) opened at Enfield, and on 10th June 2013, Junction 14, The Downs, opened to traffic along with the construction of a few frontage roads in the area.
There is a long-range plan to make further improvements to the N4 from the M50 to Leixlip, encompassing the Lucan bypass. These are described as a "reconfiguration" but no details are available. It is likely that changes will be made to the Liffey Valley junction (number 2) since this was built to a low standard around 1998.
Update 12/07/2019:
Collooney / Castlebaldwin is under construction and making good progress.
Jct 5-7 Maynooth-Leixlip Widening, Mullingar - Longford - Rooskey and Carrick on Shannon to Dromod projects are in Feasibility Study.
Update 06/10/2020:
The Collooney to Castlebaldwin scheme is flying along and may even come in before its target completion date of August 2021.
Mullingar - Longford - Rooskey is out for public consultation.
Update 12/11/2020:
Here is a video of the latest progress on the Collooney-Castlebaldwin scheme.
Update 07/02/2021:
Route options have been published for the N4 Mullingar to Rooskey upgrade. There is a virtual consultation website here and a brochure here.
Update 23/08/2021:
The 14.7 km Collooney to Castlebaldwin dual carriageway has opened to traffic today (information from before the opening is here).
It replaces the last poor quality section of the Dublin to Sligo road.
It isn't the final scheme that will take place on that route, though, as Mullingar-Longford-Carrick-on-Shannon is planned to be replaced with more dual carriageway within a decade.
For now, the mainline of the new scheme is open while work continues on side roads and tie-ins.
Update 25/05/2022:
The preferred route for N4 Carrick-on-Shannon to Dromod has been announced.
It is on page 7 of that document.
Notably, the route follows the existing N4 for the whole eastern leg.
Since it is intended to be dualled, some parts of this may involve widening the existing road and for others a new dual carriageway will be built right alongside the old road.
It is also interesting that a new urban street in the northern end of Carrick-on-Shannon will be constructed, even though it will not connect with the rest of the scheme.
Update 18/09/2022:
Updates on the M4 Maynooth-Leixlip improvement scheme have been made available on the dedicated portal website.
Some improvement options have now been discounted and are off the table.
These include:
- Widening to 6 lanes with bus lanes
- Improving Junction 7 Maynooth and building a new junction immediately to the west
- Closing J7 Maynooth, converting to overbridge and building a new junction to the west and a new junction to the east
- Parallel single carriageway road closely following the motorway
The options that are still in play are:
- Adding bus lanes with no widening
- Adding bus lanes and widening from 2 to 3 lanes outbound (westbound)
- Improving J7 Maynooth
- Closing J7 Maynooth, converting to overbridge and building a new junction to the west
- Improving J6 Celbridge
- Improving existing overbridges
Update 16/04/2024:
The N4 Carrick-on-Shannon bypass could be done by 2029.
A recent article provides an update:
The project is currently at Phase 3 (Design and Environmental evaluation) which is expected to be concluded by the end of 2024.
Phase 4 (Statutory Procedures) will then commence where a planning application will be formally submitted to An Bord Pleanála in early 2025.
...
District engineer, Darragh O'Boyle said that detailed design on a project of this scale will take two years.
"If everything is in line, you could be driving it in 2029. This timeline depends on the funding being available to bring it in through the gates to the next phase. The statutory process and An Bord Pleanála may delay things and it depends on how many objections there are. If all ducks are in a row, it's 2029."
This scheme used to consist of a 21 km dual carriageway around the town and as far south as the next section of dual at Dromod, but has been greatly reduced to only a 5.8 km town bypass element. There is no plan to build the part to Dromod.
Details of the scheme can be found here. The map is on Page 4.
The bypass will have 3 roundabouts and will pass closely to the south of the town, skirting the rail line to avoid having to bridge it. The town already has several retail parks and it looks like the new bypass will be quickly absorbed into the existing built-up area.
A new "urban street" will also be constructed to the north of the built up area from Castlecara Road to R280. This will provide a northern bypass segment but also will support future town development.
Update 04/07/2024:
The Emerging Preferred Route for the N4 Mullingar to Longford scheme has been made available on the project website.
Click on the Emerging Preferred Route Corridor Map and the Interactive Mapping to see detailed maps.
The blue route has been chosen and has the following features:
It mostly follows the existing N4 closely from Mullingar to the turnoff to Multyfarnham.
It passes to the south of Ballinalack, Rathowen and Edgeworthstown.
It then passes to the northeast of Longford town and Newtown Forbes.
From there to Rooskey it follows the existing road closely.
It will have full junctions at Mullingar (already existing), west of Mullingar, Ballinlack, Edgeworthstown, east of Longford, northeast of Longford, north of Newtown Forbes, and the roundabout south of Rooskey.
In the case of the latter, it is not clear if the roundabout will be upgraded.
No junction will be provided for Rathowen, just side road access.
There will be numerous other locations where side roads will receive some kind of treatment.
This could be a left-in-left-out junction, an overpass, or an underpass.
It is noteworthy that no specific junction on the new N4 will be provided for the N5 Longford Bypass.
Traffic making this journey will have to exit at Longford and use the existing N4 to get to the N5 Longford Bypass which opened in 2012.
There is a possibility that some traffic will follow its instincts and head as the crow flies to get to the N5 - straight through the town centre.
Another point to note is that the new N4 will pass south of Edgeworthstown, a town which was already bypassed with a single carriageway road in 2006.
A short section of the existing N4 will become the N55 as it passes through the town.
The scheme will be around 49 km long and will be dual carriageway. The exact spec of the road has not been decided at this point.
There will be grade separated junctions but also a lot of side road accesses.
This reflects the fact that the new road is important in a national context and in terms of the quantity of freight it carries, but does not serve enough population to jusify a higher category such as motorway.
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