Qualla: Jack Lynch Tunnel https://qualla.com/jack-lynch-tunnel en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:11 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/4/p/jack-lynch-tunnel-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Jack Lynch Tunnel https://qualla.com/jack-lynch-tunnel Jack Lynch Tunnel: Introduction https://qualla.com/jack-lynch-tunnel/ Photo credit Seighean (talk), Public domain. Cork's medieval street plan was not designed for sixty thousand cars a day. The old city sits on an island in the River Lee, its lanes laid down when traders moved goods by quay and donkey, and by the 1970s the math had become impossible: every road south needed to use bridges in the city centre, and every bridge was choking. The engineers who proposed a solution chose something Ireland had never tried. They would build five reinforced concrete boxes on dry land, float them out into the Lee like enormous ships, and sink them into a trench dredged across the riverbed. When the boxes were joined end to end, drivers would pass beneath the river instead of fighting through the city.

Read more: Jack Lynch Tunnel on Qualla

Image: Seighean (talk) | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/4/p/jack-lynch-tunnel-wp/gc4p-jack-lynch-tunnel-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Jack Lynch Tunnel: The Long Argument https://qualla.com/jack-lynch-tunnel/ Photo credit Seighean (talk), Public domain. The idea took roughly twenty years to become a road. It began in the late 1970s with a group of civil engineers - Sean McCarthy, Liam Fitzgerald, Liam Mullins, John O'Regan, B.J. O'Sullivan and a small team at the Department of the Environment - who pushed through Cork's Land Use...

Read more: Jack Lynch Tunnel on Qualla

Image: Seighean (talk) | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/4/p/jack-lynch-tunnel-wp/gc4p-jack-lynch-tunnel-the-long-argument.mp3 0:06 2 full Jack Lynch Tunnel: The Immersed-Tube Method https://qualla.com/jack-lynch-tunnel/ Photo credit Seighean (talk), Public domain. Building a tunnel under the bed of a tidal estuary sounds impossible. Building it on dry land and dropping it into place is, by comparison, a matter of careful arithmetic. The technique is called immersed-tube. Engineers dredged a trench across the bed of the Lee, then constructe...

Read more: Jack Lynch Tunnel on Qualla

Image: Seighean (talk) | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/4/p/jack-lynch-tunnel-wp/gc4p-jack-lynch-tunnel-the-immersed-tube-method.mp3 0:06 3 full Jack Lynch Tunnel: Dredgers With Names https://qualla.com/jack-lynch-tunnel/ Photo credit Seighean (talk), Public domain. The trench itself was an exercise in specialised equipment. The backhoe dredger Zenne handled most of the main excavation. Two barges carried the spoil nineteen kilometres downriver to a disposal site four miles offshore. A cutter dredger called Vlaanderen XIX scraped out the und...

Read more: Jack Lynch Tunnel on Qualla

Image: Seighean (talk) | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/4/p/jack-lynch-tunnel-wp/gc4p-jack-lynch-tunnel-dredgers-with-names.mp3 0:06 4 full Jack Lynch Tunnel: Open at Last https://qualla.com/jack-lynch-tunnel/ Photo credit Seighean (talk), Public domain. The tunnel opened to traffic on 21 May 1999, twenty years after the first feasibility studies. The total cost of the scheme, including approach roads, was IR£105 million - about 133 million in euros. Two two-lane bores, each lane 3.75 metres wide, carry traffic in opposite direct...

Read more: Jack Lynch Tunnel on Qualla

Image: Seighean (talk) | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/4/p/jack-lynch-tunnel-wp/gc4p-jack-lynch-tunnel-open-at-last.mp3 0:06 5 full Jack Lynch Tunnel: Jack Lynch's Name https://qualla.com/jack-lynch-tunnel/ Photo credit Seighean (talk), Public domain. The tunnel was named after Jack Lynch, the former Taoiseach who died in 1999, the same year the tunnel opened. Lynch was Cork-born and Cork-loved - a Glen Rovers hurler before he became Fianna Fáil leader and held office as head of government twice, from 1966 to 1973 and again fr...

Read more: Jack Lynch Tunnel on Qualla

Image: Seighean (talk) | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/4/p/jack-lynch-tunnel-wp/gc4p-jack-lynch-tunnel-jack-lynchs-name.mp3 0:06 6 full