N4 - Mullingar to Rooskey [route options published]

The only section of the N4 that needs to be urgently upgraded along this route is the 3 miles or so east of Longford Town. There's varying to no hard shoulder and it's quite narrow.

A poster earlier mentioned that Rooskey needs a motorway because Dublin has 5. This is just ridiculous. I know Rooskey well as I live about 30 minutes away. There are a lot of things Rooskey needs: reopening its hotel which is now an eyesore being one, more people moving to the area being another. The people of Rooskey aren't crying out for a motorway because it's already been bypassed.

A bypass of Carrick, the N55 from Athlone to Ballymahon, realigning the bad bends on the N16/N63/N67 etc would be far more beneficial in the short term for a fraction of the cost of this motorway.

It is de facto not the only road to get to Donegal. In fact, nobody travels to Donegal via the N4. Where are you getting this daft notion from? Coming from Dublin, people travel to Donegal via NI, either via Aughnacloy or Fermanagh, N2 or N3 respectively depending on direction, or via minor and local roads if heading to other areas in Donegal. It is utterly false to suggest otherwise. We don't have border controls and if a hard border was to come in the morning, the fact would remain that nobody would travel to Donegal via the N4.

Disagree if you wish but deal with facts. Yes, it's a busy road. No, it isn't busy enough to justify a motorway. Even if a motorway was/may be built, it's not a high priority given all the other safety schemes alone that need to be prioritised. It won't be happening within the next 8-10 years minimum so in the meantime, the section east of Longford for circa 3 miles or so should be widened.

I'm 30. I understand kilometres but I also understand miles. I also accept that in popular parlance, people still use miles. By all means stick to your rigid fantasy world where people avoid driving via NI and use kilometres in day to day speech, but please spare me the patronising bs that your literalist world view is the norm.

Someone digitally claims to me that an understanding of miles is obsolete, this to somebody who lives next to NI, who has the lived experience of knowing that miles are used in everyday speech here and indeed elsewhere in this island, who also has the lived experience of travelling to Dublin via the North, as everyone does here.

Unless said poster thinks in some alternative universe that cross border travel to or via NI doesn't occur as the default here, he clearly hasn't the faintest knowledge of border life, as typified by his spiel about miles becoming obsolete decades ago and that people exclusively use RoI roads to travel to Donegal. Great if that's your worldview in Cork or Dublin, but it's completely irrelevant here.

Fact: miles are the official system of measuring length/distance in NI. If you want to believe that people in Donegal don't understand this or what miles actually are, considering all the cross border travel that occurs, considering signs are in miles, considering Google Maps automatically changes to miles etc etc, I mean fair play, you do you. Mythology seems very popular among many on this beleaguered forum.

Come back to me with any data you have on travel patterns confirming journeys to Dublin via the N4 and any other data you have that the people of Donegal aren't accustomed to crossing the border, life beyond and along the border and people's non-usage of miles, both in popular culture and in practical daily life.

Donegal borders 3 counties in NI and only one in the Republic. Your premise that the reality of life on the border is not representative of all of Donegal is utter nonsense. Just because someone in Kilcar or Dungloe mightn't cross the border every week does not mean they're unaware of the ins and outs of life beyond the border. People in Donegal encounter the border on a general and consistent basis for shopping, work, travel to Dublin, including bus routes, flights etc.

What you claim as anecdote is reality here as you know fine well. Enjoy your Christmas inventing alternative realities and indulging in any other fables that keep you ticking over. Reality will bypass your opinions regardless.👍🏽

Again I ask, any data to back up that there are more than 2 people using the N4 route to travel from Dublin and environs to Donegal? This is all news to me. No Dublin to Donegal bus route travels this way, it's not a suggestion on Google Maps, nobody I know of has ever done it.

I didn't bring in the tangent of miles. The person who has deluded himself/herself/themselves into believing they're obselete and no longer relevant, given they're legal in NI, brought this up. However, I do believe said individual only did so as a poor attempt at countering my statement with a "gotcha", one which was rather futile, naive and redundant given miles are legal in NI.

Oh, well all bus routes both public and private travel from Dublin to Donegal via Tyrone or Fermanagh, depending on the direction within Donegal. The only routes that cross the county border with Leitrim are buses to Sligo, Galway and anywhere along that route. If the N4 is the best option, surely this would be reflected in private if not public buses?

Google Maps doesn't even suggest it as an alternative, let alone recommend it.

I am yet to meet anyone who commutes or travels to Dublin along the route you suggested. 2 randomers on an anonymous forum who seem to suspiciously work in tandem in sustaining myths of their own making do not count as data.

Donegal County Council, Donegal TDs, business interests etc are yet to lobby for an upgrade of the N4, yet regularly make comments, representations and lobby to upgrade routes to the border and onwards via the A5. You would think if the N4 was so vital to Donegal's connectivity, they would lobby for an upgrade of the N4.

Give it up dudes, this is just getting tedious. Your need to indulge in cognitive dissonance and the sustainance of myths just because you "thank" each other's comments is childish.

I direct you to all the evidence I have already provided. Existing bus routes, both public and private. Political communication, or lack thereof, on the issue. Digital travel recommendations. Please do provide us with any sources you have beyond you and your faceless buddy here, who likely live many miles from the area in question but have to continue this charade because they created it.

My hometown is in leitrim, so well acquainted with that end of the country.

occasionally I have to go to Donegal, from Dublin. When working, we cannot travel through the North, so are forced to drive the N4.

When not working, there is no way I would travel that way to Donegal, nor does anybody I know who goes to Donegal from Dublin.

When they're not working guaranteed they go through the North!