Bridge to be named after JFK’s mother
THE longest bridge in Ireland – which will be located a short distance from New Ross – will be named the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge.
New Ross District Director Eamonn Hore made the announcement at Wednesday’s meeting of New Ross Municipal District council. Ms Fitzgerald Kennedy – who died in 1995 aged 104 – was President John F Kennedy’s mother.
Ms Fitzgerald Kennedy was active in President John F Kennedy’s Presidential campaign and in Bobby Kennedy’s campaign and lead an extraordinary life.
Mr Hore said: ‘We have a €250m project (in the New Ross Bypass) and the bulk of that is for the bridge so on international terms this is significant. The name has a Norman influence (in Fitzgerald) and the Normans sailed up the Barrow to New Ross. The bridge is 148 metres from the townsland of Dunganstown and one mile from the Kennedy Homestead.’
He said the Fitzgerald name goes back to the founding of New Ross and the Fitzgeralds were among the first of the Norman knights to receive lands in Wexford. ‘ The Fitzgeralds landed in Bannow Bay and the Kennedy family sailed from New Ross. The new bridge links all these strands, bringing in the Dunbrody famine ship, the marriage of Aoife and Strongbow at which a Fitzgerald banner was flown and the Emigrant Flame, which was brought from John F Kennedy’s graveside in Arlington Cemetery, representing Irish emigration.’
The 887 metre Kennedy bridge will cut journey times by up to 40 minutes. The new road will allow traffic on the N25 between Cork and Waterford to bypass the town of New Ross and cross the Lower Barrow on a new 36m high, 887m long four-lane suspension bridge. This will feature the world’s longest central span three tower extradosed bridge, a type of cable-stay structure, spanning the River Barrow.