The Narrow Water Bridge
Building for the 21st Century
At that historic meeting back in 1976, when the Unionist Chairman, Arthur Lockhart of Newry and Mourne Council (as it then was) met with his Nationalist counterpart PJ O’Hare of County Louth both agreed that a bridge at Narrow Water would provide great opportunities for tourism. It was reported that Mr Lockhart commented sombrely ‘...when the Troubles die down.’ That took a while of course.
It was also back in 1976 that the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) issued a warning that a significant global warming trend driven by increasing levels of CO2 was probable.
In a number of media interviews around COP 26 held in Glasgow in November 2021, former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, said the average 2.4 degree increase in CO2 as reported by the Climate Action Tracker (CAT) would mean that people will be facing "terrible fires, terrible floods and millions of people having to leave their homes". Ms Robinson said the lack of ambition demonstrated at COP 26 means anyone under the age of 60 is likely to inhabit a world that is less liveable and facing extreme weather events - anyone under 30 is "sure to live in that world".
The former President added that political leaders do not have a crisis mindset, and that the global agreement reached was a "shameful dereliction of duty".
The ‘terrible fires’ Mrs Robinson spoke of have indeed arrived with the summer of 2026 witnessing the most devastating wildfires in France and Spain which have driven hundreds of thousands of people from their homes. If anyone is still seeking comfort in the idea that this is only happening to “distant others’ as environmentalists refer to it, they should think again. In July the Guardian ran the following headline- Swathes of the Cairngorms unrecognisable after twelve days of ‘cataclysmic’ wildfires.
Closer to home, Slievenamon in South Tipperary burned while closer still 1.5 hectares of the precious Murlough Nature Reserve near Newcastle County Down were destroyed.
CAT is currently reporting an-end-of-century warming of 2.6 degrees Celsius.
When fully integrated into the greenway infrastructure that is currently being completed, the Narrow Water Bridge will be the catalyst to bring about the critical modal change on how we move about in the coming decades. Both recreational and commuter cycling will significantly contribute to emission reduction playing an important role in reaching Net Zero by 2050.
It is now a half a century since 'Arthur met PJ' and the WMO report. Not everyone can do everything but everyone can do something, as the popular saying goes. We do not have the luxury of choice. We must all do something now!
