[2] In culture, the N17 road is featured in the song N17, released in 1991 by the Irish band The Saw Doctors.

It runs through or past several major towns and places in the area including Tuam, Miltown, Ballindine, Claremorris, Knock, Kilkelly, Charlestown, Curry, Tubbercurry and Ballinacarrow.

After leaving Miltown the route continues north towards Ballindine; this section of the N17 is of poor standard and is reduced to a narrow winding road to the County Mayo border.

This section of road is of good quality and has a hard shoulder to just south of Charlestown.

The route passes over the N5 where traffic can head towards Dublin, Strokestown and Ballaghadereen or Westport , Castlebar or Ballina.

After passing through Bellaghy the N17 in County Sligo heads in a northeasterly direction bypassing Curry, this 6 km section was built in 1993 and is of excellent standard.

The N17 ends where it meets the N4 Sligo-Dublin road at the Toberbride roundabout where traffic can either turn left to go to Sligo itself, Ballysadare, or the North West.

[3] The biggest project was the upgrade of 25.5 km of this route to motorway standard, between Tuam and east of Galway.

[5] At the northern terminus, the scheme links in with a bypass of Tuam, which provided an additional 4.2 km (2.6 mi) of dual carriageway.