Local businesses along the route have already begun preparing for an influx of cyclists and walkers. In the village of Newtowncunningham, café owner Siobhán McGinty told The Irish Chronicle : “For years, people just passed through. Now, they’ll stop. This is the first real investment here in a generation.”
LETTERKENNY – In a move hailed as a “bridge not just over rivers, but between communities,” the long-awaited North West Greenway is set to open to the public next month, connecting the rugged landscapes of County Donegal with the historic walls of Derry.
Beyond its economic promise, the greenway offers walkers a path through history — passing 19th-century railway bridges, famine-era stone walls, and the haunting silence of the Lagan Valley bogs. Interpretive signs along the route will tell stories of local emigration, the railway’s heyday, and the Troubles, when the borderlands were among the most heavily militarised in Europe.