Rose Garden: New bridge is tribute to Kennedy family


By Jimmy Rhatigan

KILKENNY Observer photographer Donal Foley’s superb pictures highlight the sheer brilliance and beauty of the recently opened Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge in Ballyverneen, Glenmore at the heart of South Kilkenny.

The bridge connects Pink Point in Glenmore to Strokestown in Wexford and is now Ireland’s longest bridge at 887 metres.

The N25 New Ross Bypass Project represents a very significant €230 million investment in the South East particularly in terms of shorter and safer journeys for road users and improved accessibility for New Ross and the wider region.

The bridge is named after Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, mother of former US President John F Kennedy whose ancestors came from nearby Dunganstown.

It is also popularly called The Pink Rock Bridge] or as the New Ross Bypass Bridge, and as the Barrow Crossing.

The construction is described as an extradosed bridge, a structure that combines the main elements of both a pre-stressed box girder bridge and a cable-stayed bridge.

Whilst incurring many of the construction costs of both the cable-stayed and girder bridge types, extradosed bridges can deliver material savings to offset much of this penalty.

Dunganstown houses the Kennedy Homestead, birthplace of President John F. Kennedy’s great-grandfather Patrick Kennedy.

It celebrates the story of five generations of the Kennedy dynasty and is still farmed by JFK’s descendants.

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