R802

Looking down Gardiner Street.

The R802 is an inner-city link road in Dublin. Its route can be summarised as compromising as Gardiner Street and Ringsend Road.

The road starts by branching from the R132 (former N1) in Mountjoy. It takes a long, wide run past the Georgian terraces, down to the more downmarket area near Custom House. Under the Dublin Transportation Plan, the section between Mountjoy Square would have run outbound only, with inbound traffic from Dorset Street being sent down Belvidere Road, Belvedere Place and around Mountjoy Square.

As it crosses the River Liffey, the precise route gets more confused. The southbound side piggy-backs on the R105 across Talbot Memorial Bridge, reappearing at Moss Street, where the Inner Orbital Route diverges. It then turns down Townsend Street, where it crosses the Inner Orbital again! This route would have been totally broken up under the Dublin Transportation Plan, to preserve Lombard Street. A new route along Hanover Quay would have provided access to Ringsend.

The northbound side takes a break at Pearse Street, letting the R118 do the work. It re-appears at Tara Street, and this time runs continuously across the Liffey on Butt Bridge, and around Beresford Place to Gardiner Street.

At Pearse Street, both sides of the R802 cross over Grand Canal Dock on MacMahon Bridge. This is another part of Dublin that has changed drastically since the 2000s. It has also changed drastically compared with the 1970s plan, which called for a large motorway junction to be built above the R802 here.

After passing Ringsend Bus Depot, it crosses the Dodder on Ringsend Bridge. In Ringsend there is another one-way system, where the road splits to run along the narrow streets towards Sean Moore Park and the R131. It does this despite there being a faster and wider route available, in the form of the R111 Church Avenue.