An Bord Pléanála has ruled against attempts to protect the Battle of Aughrim site from the impact of the new Galway-Dublin motorway.
The appeals board has found that the proposed 48-kilometre stretch between Galway and Ballinasloe will not significantly interfere with the battle location, which has been described by An Taisce as "Ireland's Gettysburg".
The board's approval of the route includes a series of mitigation measures to ensure that it will not have a significant adverse effect on the environment. The road should be built at or below ground level at the battlefield location, it says, and any overbridges in this area should also be lowered correspondingly.
It also says that rail bridges should be able to accommodate double-track rail lines, with electrification, to allow for upgrading of the Dublin-Galway rail link and reopening the Athenry-Limerick rail link without disrupting traffic on the N6.
Noise attenuation measures should be incorporated in the design and construction to allow for properties in the vicinity of the proposed motorway.
The ruling clears the way for compulsory purchase orders and has been welcomed by the Progressive Democrats TD for Galway West, Noel Grealish.
However, the Green Party's Cllr Niall Ó Brolcháin has pointed out that the route will only cut a few minutes off car travel time between Dublin and Galway and will cost more than the quoted cost of reopening the Western Rail Corridor between Sligo and Limerick. It would also make the Loughrea bypass completely unnecessary, he said.
Appeals over the battle site, where some 9,000 are reported to have died in 1691, had been raised at the oral hearing on the route, which lasted over a month and resulted in gardaí being called at one point amid allegations of an assault on an objector by a local authority official. The hearing heard that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern had given the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) leader, David Trimble, a written assurance in June 2001 about the historical importance of the Battle of the Boyne and Battle of Aughrim sites in relation to new roadway plans.
In a letter to Mr Ahern, Cecil Kilpatrick, archivist of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, warned that the proposed route would run "through the command post of the Williamite general Ginkel, through the position of the right wing of the Williamite cavalry commanded by Huguenot General Ruvigny and through the site of a Williamite gun battery".
