Culture Night 2026 takes place on Friday 18th September 2026.
I have reviewed the listing of events and there are only 2 events of an IH nature:
Cork – Midleton Distillery Experience (pre-booking required)
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Author: ewan.duffy
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Northern Ireland Heritage Open Days 2026
Northern Ireland Heritage Open Days 2026 takes place on the weekend of September 12-13 2026.
I have created a page with a listing of events of an IH nature.
The BBC have an article about Sarah Doherty, a lady who campaigned for better working conditions for the (primarily) female workforce in Derry shirt factories in the late 19th/early 20th century.
A blue plaque in her honour was unveiled in Derry City on 22nd July.
The infamous Iron bridge in Coalbrookdale, Shropshire, is the subject of an interesting Youtube video by well known Youtuber Tom Scott.
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Heritage Week 2026
As is customary for this time of year, I have reviewed the Heritage Week site and compiled a listing of events of IH interest.
Wait, what, I never expressed an opinion on anything in Mayo – oh, not me.
The Western People reports that Fine Gael Senator Mark Duffy (no relation) has welcomed the building of a passenger shelter at Manulla Junction. IMHO, describing this as a “long awaited Mayo rail facility” is a stretch of the imagination.
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Belcoo & Blacklion Station
The former station at Belcoo & Blacklion, in Co. Fermanagh but close enough to Blacklion in Co. Cavan to have the latter place in its name, was a station on the former Sligo, Leitrim & Northern Counties railway line from Collooney, Co. Sligo to Enniskillen, Co. Fermanagh.
The station and line closed in 1957 by virtue of an edict of the Northern Ireland Government to close most the GNR(I) railway lines west of the River Bann. This led to other line closures by virtue of the loss of connectivity, including the still independent SL&NCR.
The station building in Belcoo is currently for sale. I will not be expressing an interest in it as it is in Northern Ireland rather than in the Republic.
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River Liffey pollution
Following on from the €50m IT fiasco, Irish Rail is embroiled in another scandal. The Journal reports that fuel storage facilities owned by Irish Rail at Connolly Station are believed to be leaking into the River Liffey with all the negative consequences that this entails.
This has shades of the problem uncovered in 2019 where ESB power cables were leaking oil into the Grand Canal in Dublin.
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Common sense prevailing on Irish Rail
I spotted this notice on the side of the ticket machine at Kilcock station last week.
In a rare outbreak of common sense in Ireland, Irish Rail is encouraging those who are not feeling well to alight from the train and await assistance at the nearest station, which (cue all the haters), IMHO, is a better outcome than holding a train at a station waiting for assistance to arrive for 1 passenger.
The London Underground has had similar signs at their stations for years and I am pleased to see Irish Rail is starting to follow suit.
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Electricity costs in Ireland
I normally work on the basis of not believing anything government related until it has been officially denied by RTE or the BBC.
Having said that, in a rare act of explaining something in simple English, RTE has a very good article explaining why electricity costs in Ireland are the highest in Europe.
TLDR, electricity is more expensive in Ireland due to:
- Higher costs generally, which then feed into supplies/staff costs/taxes etc borne by electricity providers
- Higher wages/salaries in Ireland relative to other countries
- The size of Ireland’s grid.
I was pleasantly surprised to see this last one mentioned as normally, anything that implies that the proliferation of one off housing in rural Ireland comes with a price tag is deemed to be the elephant in the corner of the room and is not talked about or, worse still, its existence is denied.