Repurposed 40km greenway set to open after €5m works, marketing blitz planned

The 40km Limerick Greenway will open this summer, despite some delays due to the Covid-19 pandemic, after having €5 million spent on repurposing it.

The Limerick Greenway is the new name for the Limerick stretch of the Great Southern Greenway. It follows a route along the old Great Southern rail line connects the three market towns of Rathkeale, Newcastle West and Abbeyfeale.

While that 40km greenway is set to open again this summer, backed by a major new marketing project, the extension to the greenway from the Limerick-Kerry border near Abbeyfeale to Listowel is also nearing completion.

Furthermore, an extension on the eastern end of the Limerick Greenway is also being developed, from Rathkeale to Limerick. For now, however, the repurposed and rebranded 40km is on course to open this summer, according to Limerick County Council.

The contract awarded to Roadbridge last June involved the upgrade of the entire 40 kilometres of the greenway from Rathkeale to Abbeyfeale to a 3-metre wide macadam surface; bringing the route to the highest national standard.

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Springboard and
Totem, two Munster based firms
who previously worked promoting
the Waterford Greenway, have been appointed to promote the Limerick Greenway,
which is now being backed as a major tourism drawn in post-pandemic Ireland.

The council said
the companies had been tasked with devising “a suite of promotional material for the upgraded greenway and will assist the council
on stepping up marketing and promotion”.

A ‘Greenway Destination Development
Programme’ will also be undertaken in partnership with West Limerick Resources later this year.

Gordon Daly, director of services
for community development at Limerick City and County Council said local
businesses would be supported to increase their capacity to take advantage of
the commercial opportunities the greenway’s re-opening will bring.

“Kerry County Council have indicated that their section of the greenway will be named either the Kerry or North Kerry Greenway and both councils have committed to engaging in joint marketing and promotion of the route in partnership with Fáilte Ireland,” he said.