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The N13 and N15 form two of the main trunk roads in the east of County Donegal. The N15 starts from Strabane/Lifford and and heads south-west via Donegal town and Ballyshannon towards Sligo. At Stranorlar it is met by the N13 which begins near Derry, then via Letterkenny and heads south. Stranorlar, and its neighbour, Ballybofey, (with a total population of just under 5000 people) form the two biggest bottlenecks on the road. This scheme would see a dual-carriageway (type 2) bypass built around the north/west of the twin towns, with a new single-carriageway road link connecting the bypass to the N15 towards Lifford/Strabane. A second link road would connect the centre of the bypass to the R252 Glenfin Road and into the Ballybofey. The map below shows the proposed route as of 2020 (click to expand). Sold black is dual-, and dashed is single-carriagerway. A more detailed design can be seen here.

The road would be dualbuilt to a high quality -carriageway standard, with no intermediate junctions on the level, and two grade-separated junctions. It will include a major bridge over the River Finn. The scheme is one element of three schemes being taken forward together as a single project, the other two being the N56/N13 Letterkenny to Manorcunningham upgrades and N14 Manorcunningham to A5 at Lifford/Strabane.

Updates

10 Nov 2025: Note that this update refers to ALL THREE Donegal Ten-T projects. To avoid duplication, I'm only updating this page instead of putting identical updates on all three of the related projects – see links below the map above for the other two. An article in the Donegal Daily at Hallowe'en reports that the compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) for this road (the Irish equivalent of a Vesting Order) will be published in January. It's not totally clear to me if the publication of the CPOs is the point at which the land ownership transfers, or if it is merely publication of the proposed CPO. With work not due to get underway until 2028 the latter seems more likely to me as there would be little point in acquiring the land now. The Donegal County engineer who addressed the meeting that the article covers said "We’re at the very final stage now and very much looking at publishing in January. However, we would have to allow for one or one-and-a-half years of delays in the event of appeals. We are looking at a five year construction period, with completion date in 2032". Even through the legislation that scuppered the A5 project doesn't apply to Donegal, the engineers are still cognisant of the threat of legal challenges. The engineer said "it’s a massive project and we saw what happened with the A5 (appeal). The project team is doing great work and they are making sure they are dotting all Is and Ts". With thanks to redfred for letting me know about this article.

16 Aug 2024: With thanks to a correspondent who wrote to clarify that the bypass is going to be a dual-carriageway, not a single-carriageway as I had said initially. The associated link roads, including the one connecting the bypass to the N15 east of Stranorlar, will be single-carriageway. Despite the announcement of approval for the scheme in July (see below), the official web site on the scheme hasn't been updated for about three years.

26 Jul 2024: The Irish Cabinet yesterday finally approved this scheme, later than anticipated in the previous update. The scheme – and the two other Donegal TEN-T schemes which have been approved too – will now move to the planning and procurement processes. Subject to all going to plan with these processes, construction is anticipated to get underway in 2028, i.e. four years from now. The government has also said that it will be revising the cost estimates in due course, as the current estimate of €150-180m dates from 2022 and the rate of construction inflation has been quite high in the past few years. With thanks to Paul McCloskey for giving me the heads up about this decision.

30 Aug 2023: First point to make is that this is my first attempt to follow a scheme outside Northern Ireland, so if I have made any basic errors please be gentle and let me know roads at wesleyjohnston.com! At this stage the scheme has a detailed design (see here) but construction is unlikely to begin before 2026. The next couple of years will need to see the scheme taken through the process to obtain planning permission. The scheme also needs a business case signed off, which is expected sometime this year. The current cost estimate is €150-180m at 2022 prices but this is likely to rise due to the recent surge in construction inflation. A reminder that the excellent JP Dowling over at Irish Motorway Info maintains information on new roads across the whole of the Republic.