*Bog road as part of Dereney Rd
A BOG road closed since the end of 2024 is finally expected to reopen later this year.
The Clare County Council plans on adding Geogrid Reinforcement to a section of the Dereney Road, subject to the Climate Adaptation grant.
The notice of motion submitted by Cllr Pat Burke (FG) at the January Killaloe Municipal meeting asked, “The Clare County Council to provide an update on the Bog Road between Dereney and the Ash Tree cross in Whitegate which has been closed now for over 12 months.”
The bog road was closed in the interest of safety by the Council in December 2024. “They had been repairing it and had done a good job, but because of the boggy nature of the ground, the road just collapsed completely,” explained Burke.
The Clare County Council received Climate Adaptation funding last year for investigations on the “failed section” of the Dereney road L-8096, Michael O’Grady, A/Senior Executive Engineer, explained. A tender for a consultant was carried out to identify the existing ground conditions, with an investigation and soil testing required. The investigation revealed there was 2m of made ground on top of a peat layer extending down to 11.5m with a stiffer clay and soft bedrock layer.
Soil samples of each layer over the depth of the boreholes were recovered and sent for testing. O’Grady said, “We have received a preliminary report outlining the options of repair,” the preferred method of which was to add Geogrid Reinforcement. “It’s literally big sheets of a type of plastic that are stacked on top of each other, and then the finished surface is laid on top of that,” Burke explained. “It’ll take heavy traffic, but it’s very light in weight, so hoping that it won’t sink then.”
“Geogrid is what Bórd na Móna would have used a lot up the Midlands in the bogs for taking traffic.”
Burke told The Clare Echo that three farmers in particular are affected by the road’s closure, one of whom is “majorly inconvenienced” with regular detours by tractor from the edge of the road to his farmland in Galway. “It’s a public road at the end of the day and it has to be repaired.”
Burke is confident that repairs will take only a week or two in April, May, or June. “The earlier the better,” he added. O’Grady told councillors, “Works will be carried out on site in Q2 2026,” with the aim of reopening the L-8096.
“I trust that they know what they’re doing,” Burke said about the project’s engineers and surveyors. “I hope that this option will work.”
“I thought it would happen last August/September,” he admitted. The repairs did not go ahead because the Council were procuring contractors to carry out the survey, which was when they discovered 11.5 meters of peaty ground under the road.
The Council have applied for funding under the Climate Adaptation grant to carry out the road repair works in 2026. Burke told The Clare Echo, “I’m reliably informed that the application will be successful in the interest of the public.”
O’Grady added, “We are currently waiting for the final report to be issued as some soil test had yet to be completed prior to issuing the preliminary report.”
Other options of repair included Vertical Drains, Soil Mixing, Deep Foundations, Embankment Construction, Lightweight Aggregates, New Route Alignment, and closing the road, which Burke added, “obviously I wouldn’t be happy with at all.”
