Categories
IH News 2022

The Four Pots

Located in Kildare, between the Leinster Aquaduct and Digby Bridge, the Four Pots are unique in Ireland.

Built as an overflow for the Grand Canal, the circular design is reputed to have been built to facilitate a gradual deceleration of water from the canal to an adjacent stream, rather than a fast flow, which would potentially undermine the canal embankment.

KildareNow are reporting that Waterways Ireland are seeking conservation experts to undertake repairs to the structure. I hope that WI’s budget will allow for ongoing vegetation clearance from the structure once restored as otherwise, it will degenerate back into an overgrown state, as has happened in the past.

Categories
History

Parnell Bridge, Cork City

The RTE website has a short (22 second) clip, showing the dismantling of Parnell Bridge in Cork City in 1968.

Categories
Site Updates

Gazetteer update

I hadn’t planned on providing running updates of my progress in creating/uploading photo gallery pages. However, as one of the pages so loaded is that of Clondalkin (demolished as part of the Kildare Route Project), I felt that a blogpost linking to this and noting that counties Carlow, Cavan, Cork and Dublin are now also online was appropriate.

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IH News 2022

Devon Road Station, Limerick

HT to Liam O’Mahony for sending me details of this former railway station for sale in Limerick, located on the former North Kerry railway line. Devon Road was located between Newcastlewest and Abbeyfeale.

At €380k, I think the market has peaked.

Categories
Site Updates

Gazetteer update

I have finally created and loaded web images for all of my photos of railway stations in Ireland, dating back to the start of the millennium. The next stage, which I have started, is to load a photo gallery page of each station location where I have loaded web images. I am doing this by county and as of today, Antrim, Armagh and Clare are loaded.

However, in some cases, there is no link from a given station page to the photo gallery. The linking of same will be Stage 3 of the process (currently on Stage 2).

Over the next couple of weeks, more photo gallery pages will be added. Those station pages with a pre-existing link to a gallery page will automatically link to the updated page and will give access to more photos of that location, assuming I had taken photos of same previously.

Categories
IH News 2022

You can’t have a railway station – have a plaque

Irish Rail are in the early stages of planning for DART South West and have, by all accounts, ruled out including a station in Ballyfermot, notwithstanding that such a thing would improve this area that is starting to gentrify.*

But don’t worry, in co-operation with Dublin City Council, they have permitted a plaque commemorating a civil war event to be placed on the bridge that, if the current plans come to pass, will need to be demolished to allow the DART, that won’t serve Ballyfermot, to be built.

* From 2018-2021, I lived in Ballyfermot (on the Kylemore Road about 750m from the Le Fanu Road bridge). Societal changes brought about by COVID saw me leave the area.

Categories
General

Don’t care, won’t care

One of the activities I started a few months ago was a monthly volunteer litter picking event on the Royal Canal at Clonsilla.

I was supposed to be doing that today, but Gobshite Rail decided to not bolster capacity on the Sligo line for whatever bogball match is on in Croke Park, meaning that when the relevant train that should have brought me to Maynooth arrived at Kilcock, it was already full and no boarding possible. Needless to say, the PA at Kilcock remained silent about this.

As a State body, Gobshite Rail is required to favour all equally or not at all. I would like Gobshite Rail to explain why those travelling to bogball matches should be prioritised over every other recreational activity.

A traditional trope in Ireland when someone criticises something (especially the State) is to hit back with a suggestion that the person making the criticism should go and work there if they think they could do better.

For the record, I recently applied for a role in the company and received a generic email yesterday advising me that they would not be calling me for interview. I did offer to put my money where my mouth is, but a company like this would only be intimidated by someone who is as knowledgeable about their company (and its dead bodies) as I am.

Categories
IH News 2022

Railway cottage, Glenfarne, Co. Leitrim

There is an ex SL&NCR crossing cottage for sale on Daft.ie – however, the absence of internal photos of any property on a property website is usually indicative of a property needing extensive internal work.

In addition, I expect a fall in property values in the next 12 months so even at an asking price of €65k, I’m not interested.

Separately, the potted history provided by the seller/agent appears to be lifted from the blurb about the previous sale of Glenfarne Station last year, which contained errors that I pointed out to the estate agent at the time.

Another concern I would have, based on the site boundary, it that most of your garden is the railway trackbed, which will potentially be subject to compulsory purchase order for a greenway, leaving you with no garden and possibly nowhere to install a septic tank. The sales blurb states the following:

“The cottage would benefit from some renovation and modernisation and is serviced by Water and electricity.”

Nothing about a septic tank, which I suspect is not present.