Posts of an historical nature
One of the lesser known canals of Ireland, also known as the ‘Dry Canal’, due to never having been completed and misinformation around the reasons for same, is the Cong Canal. I came across this recent Youtube Video on the subject, which makes extensive use of drone footage of the area to highlight what remains.
Railways brought forth all sorts of social change and innovation, in much the same way that the internet has over the last 25 years.
One such act of entrepeneurship in London saw the creation of the London Necropolis Company, which transported the deceased and their funeral cortege from London to a Brookwood cemetery, some 23 miles south west of London, by train. Primarily using the railway lines of other companies, they did have their own connections at both London and Brookwood.
Continuing in operation until 1941, the company’s former station building at 121 Westminster Bridge Road, London, remains in alternative use. This is the second London station of the company, coming into use in 1902.
The original station was nearby and removed to make way for expansion of the adjacent railway mainline, the Necropolis Railway Company making the London & South Western Railway pay heavily for their relocation.
The BBC have an article about the industries of Roman Britain which is interesting.
RTE has put an archive segment from 1984 on their website, reporting on the Kilkenny Mills in Kells, Co. Kilkenny.
No, there was never a railway to Glendalough, Co. Wicklow. However, as with most places in Ireland of any significance, proposals to build such a line were made in the 19th Century.
The Greystones Guide has an article by Gary Paine about this.
I am happy to link to this site, which is an effort to establish an online archive of historic material relating to the erstwhile McArdle’s brewery in Dundalk, Co. Louth.
The Commissioners of Irish Lights, the statutory body responsible for lighthouses on the island of Ireland, has a page on their website about the Fastnet Lighthouse, noting thereon that the current light was first exhibited on 27 June 1904.
The infamous Keady Tunnel in Co. Armagh never saw a train run through it, being built under the short lived Keady to Castleblayney railway line (1910-1923).
The reason for its existence was the Ulster and Connaught Light Railway – a madcap scheme to build a narrow gauge railway from Greenore, Co. Louth, to Clifden Co. Galway, via Newry, Bessbrook, Keady, Tynan, Maguiresbridge, Bawnboy Road, Dromod, Rooskey, Tuam and Cong to Clifden.
Some of this network would use existing railways but the most significant section from Dromod to Clifden would be entirely new. As this line was authorised around the same time as the line from Castleblayney to Armagh, the builders of the latter had to accommodate the proposal with a bridge under their line at Keady.
As the U&CLR plans never came to fruition, the tunnel has never had a train run through it.
I have created a webpage in the Gazetteer for Keady Tunnel and this (and other tunnels) will feature in the next map upgrade.
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.