N52 road (Ireland)

The N52 road is a national secondary road in Ireland. It links the M7 motorway from just south of Nenagh, County Tipperary to the M1 motorway north of Dundalk in County Louth.

The road is long.

Quality of Road

The road is mainly single carriageway two-lane throughout. It has some upgraded sections, but generally the standard is poor or very poor. It starts (from the southwest) at a grade separated junction with the M7 motorway and by-passes Nenagh on its western side as a greenfield single carriageway with hard shoulders. Past Nenagh it is generally a single carriageway with no shoulders all the way to Birr. Many sections of this part of the route are very poor through North Tipperary. The route from Birr to Tullamore was upgraded in recent years and has good alignment, hard shoulders and a good surface as has the section from Tullamore to Kilbeggan which was upgraded in the 1970s.

Leaving Kilbeggan its old route went past the racecourse via Ballinagore. It now joins the new M6 motorway (opened May 2007) south of Kilbeggan and follows it eastwards to the Tyrrellspass exit. From this junction it heads north to Mullingar as the new Tyrrellspass eastern bypass. It then follows the old route for before forming the eastern by-pass of Mullingar (opened May 2007); joins the N4 dual-carriageway briefly before leaving to head east over a very poor road to Delvin, Kells and Ardee before reaching the M1 south of Dundalk. Two kilometers of dual-carriageway take it to the R132 (the old...
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