Doody Plant are currently sub-contracted on the advance works which include diversions for gas, electric, telecommunications and water at the Dunkettle Interchange in Co Cork. The site work involves bulk earth moving, rock breaking and other ground works, As part of the Dunkettle advance works, a new link road is planned connecting the N8 Cork City road with the M8 Cork to Dublin motorway incorporating a separating cycle-ways and a pedestrian path.
We are happy to be providing heavy dump trucks, diggers and drivers at this stage of the Dunkettle interchange project. The Dunkettle interchange is the major intersection of a number of key national routes including the M8 Dublin to Cork motorway, the N25 Cork to Waterford Road and the N40 Southern Ring Road through the Jack Lynch Tunnel.
The Jack Lynch Tunnel is an immersed tube tunnel, part of the N40 southern ring road around Cork and completed in 1999. As was typical on a large-scale project of this type at the time, the chosen contractor was a joint venture of Tarmac Walls JV (formed by Tarmac Construction, later known as Carillion, and P.J. Walls (Civil) Ltd.) part of Ireland’s Walls Group. Various subcontractors then handled many of the key tasks of this major construction project.
The chosen method of construction was the immersed tube technique where a trench is dredged in the bed of the water channel. Tunnel sections were constructed in a dry area like casting basins, a fabrication yard, on a ship-lift platform or in a factory unit. The ends of the section were then temporarily sealed with bulkheads. Each tunnel section was transported to the tunnel site sometimes floating, occasionally on a barge, or assisted by cranes. In the 610-metre-long reinforced concrete immersed Jack Lynch Tunnel the tube is made up of five elements and the northern approach was formed by a 120-metre-long floated open ‘boat’ section – the first of its kind at the time.