For many of my age group and older, Brennans Bread would have been a staple of our diet, Brennans (along with Johnson Mooney and O’Brien) being the primary bread bakeries in the Dublin Area.
Extra.ie (amongst others) reports on the passing of Joseph Brennan, founder of the bakery, aged 82.
The coming of railways to Ireland (and elsewhere globally) was a game changing event, both economically and socially, as the opportunities that the railway brought for economic expansion and social diversification were enormous.
A throwaway line in this property puff piece gives a hint of how the coming of a railway to a local area had an effect at the macro level.
The property in question is a former gate lodge of Rokeby Hall, Grangebellew, Co. Louth. The article notes:
Marlay was the gate lodge to Rokeby Hall, designed by Francis Johnson. It was single storey initially, but they added a floor when the railway came through and the road was raised.
Irish independent 31 May 2024
This got me thinking – why would the arrival of the railway lead to the road being raised?
I checked the usual map sources and this property is immediately west of the railway line between Drogheda and Dundalk with an overbridge carrying the former access road to Rokeby Hall over the railway. This is the road raising referred to.
I would assume that with the road raised, the original single storey property was below the new road level and the gatekeeper would not have a line of sight to the road to control access to the estate. Adding a second storey in this case would make sense.
The only question I have remaining is whether or not Sir John Stephen Robinson, owner of the estate at the time, received additional compensation from the Dublin & Belfast Junction Railway for the cost of extending the gate lodge.
I found this video on YouTube which is a concise history of the tramways/railway serving the Guinness Brewery in Dublin.
The headline had me excited – I thought there was a hitherto hidden version of the Greenwich Foot Tunnel in Dublin that had escaped my attention. Sadly, no. Just a clickbait headline.
The “tunnels” referred to are the pedestrian underpasses that grace Sandwith Street, Upper Erne Street and Macken Street in Dublin, design features of the Dublin & Kingstown Railway that were insisted on by the Wide Streets Commissioners. The article references 3 other “tunnels”, however, these are standard road underbridges with no side arches for pedestrians.
The article calls for Irish Rail to engage in a regular cleanup of the underpasses. I would have thought that this was a Dublin City Council responsibility?
This site doesn’t do trains normally, however, there is always an exception to the rule.
Donegal Daily is reporting that the Oakfield Park demense in Donegal will be hosting a 24 hour trainathon on the Difflin Lake Railway from 6pm on Saturday 25th May to 6pm Sunday 26th May 2024, to raise funds for Relay for Life Donegal, a cancer charity.
The inaugural Birr Engineering Festival will take place on 18th – 20th October 2024.
The Irish Examiner reports that Waterford City and County Council are to convert the former station building at Kilmacthomas on the Waterford – Dungarvan Greenway to tourist accommodation.
The plans (part of a bigger scheme to do likewise with a former bank building in Lismore) will see the station building have 2 units capable of hosting 4 people. A separate unit will also be built to house a model railway based on the former railway line. The ongoing management of the venture will be managed by third parties.
industrialheritageireland.info commends WCCC on these initiatives.
I was up in Belfast today, taking photographs of Yorkgate station building and Great Victoria Street station. The specific reason for an urgent trip to Belfast was the impending demolition of both.
In the case of the latter, Translink are developing a new bus/rail interchange station, to be called “Grand Central Station” and due to the layout of this, Great Victoria Street station (which only reopened in 1995) is to close on 10 May 2024, after which it will be demolished. Its replacement is not due to open until 2025.
Separately, Translink have built a new station building at the renamed Yorkgate Station (now York Street, although the platform signs as of today still said Yorkgate) and the old (1992) building and footbridge are to be demolished on 6 May 2024.
I also took the opportunity to take a photograph of the site of Queen’s Quay station and visit Magheramorne – the latter was the last open station in Ireland that I had never visited, a status it lost today.
I found this video on YouTube today, which explains what a Cornish design mine engine house is.
Whilst this uses examples from Cornwall, the man engine house in Allihies, Co. Cork, which was successfully conserved by the Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland, is a Cornish design engine house and is the only example of its kind in Ireland.
A talk about the history of Pierce’s Foundry, Wexford, will be hosted by the Wexford Historical Society on 24th April 2024 at 8pm in Clayton White’s Hotel in Wexford.
All are welcome – entry is free to Wexford Historical Society members, with an entrance fee of €5 for non-members.