NWBCN launches Monthly Newsletter

With a Hard Brexit looming ominously like a dark cloud, NWBCN believes the building of the Narrow Water Bridge is more important than ever. In January we launched our Newsletter in which we will continue to make the case for the bridge while highlighting issues relevant  to our shared economic future around Carlingford Lough.

It is hard to image a more ancient and iconic site than Saul near Downpatrick believed to be the burial place of St Patrick. The NWBCN has long called for the extension of Ireland's Ancient East to include the eastern counties of Northern Ireland, a landscape as littered with remains of our ancient past both Christian and Pre-Christian as the counties further south. It is heartening to note that political support for this is gathering.

As tourism is one of the areas of cooperation set out in the Good Friday Agreement the political structures are already in place to bring this about.  A critical counter-balance to the highly successful Wild Atlantic Way is necessary to create a more equitable dispersal of tourist visitors as they arrive at the main entry point at Dublin Airport. Read what Pascal Donohoe, the then Tourism Minister in the Republic, had to say at the launch of the Ireland's Ancient East initiative back in 2015.

A Eurovelo study from 2012 indicated that the European cycle market was worth €54 billion. Indeed the Great Western Greenway, a pioneer initiative in long-distance cycle trail boasts of creating some 200 tourism-related jobs in County Mayo. This growth in active tourism such as cycling and walking is one of the underpinning arguments in support of the building of the Narrow Water Bridge. Both councils, particularly Louth County Council, are to be congratulated in their efforts in developing the local cycle network. However the current greenway spine leaves Warrenpoint and South Down isolated. The Narrow Water Bridge will provide the natural interconnector for the Cooley, Gullion and Mourne region