Plans to construct an 8km missing link in the 150km Dublin to Longford Royal Canal Greenway are finally to be submitted to An Coimisiún Pleanála by Fingal County Council, 14 years after the project was proposed.
The council is finalising designs and expects to submit its application by the end of March for the route, which will run from the 12th lock at Castleknock to the Kildare border close to Leixlip Confey railway station.
Once the Fingal section is complete, cyclists will be able to travel on the scenic canal route from Dublin’s docklands to Longford, or Athlone. The route is designed to eventually extend to Galway, forming Ireland’s contribution to the EuroVelo Route 2 running across Europe to Russia.
The Royal Canal Greenway extends across six local authority areas – Dublin City Council, and Fingal, Kildare, Meath, Westmeath and Longford County Councils. The route is almost entirely complete, but the 8km Fingal section has been dogged by delays.
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In 2012 the then minister for transport Leo Varadkar announced plans for the construction of a 277km coast-to-coast greenway from Galway to Dublin, due to be completed in 2020.
Within two years Fingal had competed a 2.5km section along the canal from Ashtown to the 12th lock in Castleknock. In 2014 the Westmeath section, from Mullingar to the Meath border, opened.
By 2019 the Meath to Kildare section was complete, and the following year, Dublin City Council opened a short section from the Docklands to the North Strand. By 2021 the route was complete from Maynooth in Kildare to Cloondara in Longford, a distance of about 130km.
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Last year, the stretch from Confey to Maynooth opened, finishing the Kildare section, and the Dublin city route was extended to Phibsborough, leaving 4km from Phibsborough to Ashtown to be completed by the city council. Parts of this last city section are already finished; all is passable by bicycle but requires upgrading to greenway standard, pending a decision under consideration by An Coimisiún Pleanála.
However, despite numerous studies and rounds of public consultation over several years, the 8km Fingal section has stalled. The existing section from Ashtown to Castleknock runs along the south bank of the canal, and an initial consultant’s report in 2012 recommended the 8km route continue on this side.
However, engineering difficulties associated with building on the south side, particularly through an area known as the “deep sinking”, emerged. The deep sinking is a 2km stretch between Castleknock and Clonsilla where the canal is several metres lower than the towpath.
On the south bank the towpath runs close to the rail line, and the integrity of the supporting embankment was raised as a serious concern by Iarnród Éireann.
Moving the route to the northern bank was opposed by some residents’ groups, particularly those whose gardens backed on to the towpath, giving rise to privacy and security concerns. A number of gardens close to Castleknock have been extended to the side of the canal.
The council arrived at a solution where the greenway would remain on the south bank for approximately 500 metres past the existing road bridge at the 12th lock, where a new cycle and pedestrian bridge would be built over the canal to the north bank, bypassing the homes closest to the towpath. In addition, the number of greenway access points from the adjacent housing estates would be reduced, and there would be additional screening measures.
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The report outlining the changes was published in mid-2022. In November 2024 the council requested consent from Waterways Ireland, which has responsibility for the canal, and from Iarnród Éireann, to submit its planning application to An Coimisiún Pleanála.
The council received consent from Iarnród Éireann last July. Last September Waterways Ireland told the council it would issue a letter of support for the project. The final design is undergoing review “prior to making the submission of a planning application to An Coimisiún Pleanála in late Q1 2026”, the council said.
