The M18 motorway at Gort
Gort sits on the motorway that ties Limerick and Ennis to Galway. The M18 reached the town from the south on 12 November 2010, when 22 kilometres from Crusheen opened, and left it northward in September 2017, when the Gort to Tuam scheme opened the road to Athenry and the M6. The stretch through Clare had a stranger history: in 1999 a fairy bush at Latoon held up the Newmarket-on-Fergus bypass and made the world's newspapers.
Checked against the source on 2026-09-19.
Gort Castle on the 3D model; tap a pin for its page and directions.
Piece by piece
The road begins at junction 9 on the Shannon bypass and heads north past Newmarket-on-Fergus and Dromoland, bypassed by a 5.7 km dual carriageway opened on 30 September 2002 that cleared one of the worst bottlenecks in the country. The 14 km Ennis bypass, which also skirts Clarecastle, opened on 26 January 2007 after three years' work; both became motorway on 28 August 2009 in the second round of redesignations, after the National Roads Authority decided in 2008 that every grade-separated section of the N18, built or planned, should run under motorway rules. Crusheen to Gort was built by SIAC Wills from October 2008 and opened on 12 November 2010.
Gort to Tuam
The 58 km Gort to Tuam project, confirmed in April 2014, added 27 km to the M18 from Gort to Athenry and built the M17 on to Tuam, meeting the Dublin to Galway M6 at junction 18. The whole route is part of the Atlantic Corridor called for in Transport 21. The model on this page pins Gort's station and square; the Gort train station guide has the rail alternative on the same corridor.
Questions people ask
When did the M18 reach Gort?
Is the M18 tolled?
What was the Latoon fairy bush?
Written from Wikipedia, "M18 motorway (Ireland)" (CC BY-SA 4.0), read on 2026-09-19, and from the OpenStreetMap places on the model. Nothing has been added from memory; follow the source for its footnotes.