Kilkenny’s Western Environs: Where the streets have new names (even though they don’t exist yet)

THEY may not even exist yet, but that hasn’t stopped Kilkenny County Council’s rather grand sounding ‘infrastructure naming committee’ from naming some of city’s planned new roadways.

A few eyebrows were raised this week after new monikers were slapped on streets and parks to be constructed as part of the Western Environs project.

The city’s Western Environs — including the Wetlands, Poulgour, and Drakelands Lower — will henceforth be known as ‘Breagagh Valley’, the council has decreed.

A seven hectare ‘Fr Tommy Maher Park’ will sit between the Callan and Kilmanagh roads.

The new street from Wolfe Tone Street to the Castlecomer Road will be known as ‘Old Mart Street’. And a new road from the Callan Road to the Circular Road will be called ‘William Robertson Way’.

No-one has objected to the new names, but one councillor – David Kennedy – did point out that it was “a bit premature” to the name a road and a park that doesn’t actually exist yet.

“We are naming stuff before it’s even built. I just find it a bit ridiculous,” he said.

Meanwhile, Minister and Kilkenny TD John Paul Phelan (pictured above turning the sod at the Western Environs development) said construction work on the project would cause traffic disruption over the next 18 months, but he said it will be more than worth it in the long run.

He told KCLR this week that work has already started on the site and that he’s confident it’ll be finished in the shortest possible length of time.