Except for it being in Northern Ireland, I think I’d be putting in an offer.
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Category: IH News 2021
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Smithwick’s Experience Kilkenny
RTE reports that the Smithwicks Experience in Kilkenny, which was a Diageo owned visitor experience focusing on Smithwicks, is to close permanently as a result of Government lockdowns.
I suppose if it saves one life………..
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Greenways galore
Another day, another greenway proposal for something that won’t be useable unless you live within 5km of it and have an appropriate social credit score.
Per the Leitrim Observer, Leitrim County Council have issued a tender for the design and preliminary route selection of a greenway on the former Sligo Leitrim and Northern Counties Railway trackbed.
The article contains a prime example of the inability of the MSM to actually get their facts correct (and they wonder why the MSM is in financial difficulty?). It claims that:
The simplicity of using the closed railway route is that the route is used on license from Irish Rail if it is ever needed for a new railway in the future.
I obviously missed the bit in Irish railway history where the SL&NCR was bought by GSR/CIE, thereby giving them the trackbed. The last time I checked, the SL&NCR, being a cross border railway, was excluded from the merger of all railway companies wholly within the Free State in the 1920s and it continued on as an independent concern until the Government of Northern Ireland closed the connecting line through Enniskillen by fiat, thereby rendering the SL&NCR economically defunct.
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Down the rabbit hole
I give up.
As if the madness around a virus with an IFR of 0.15% (i.e. 99.85% of people who get this virus don’t die) wasn’t bad enough, the Irish Government (which is borrowing billions to pay people to not work who should be working and paying people to work (public servants) who shouldn’t be working) intends to spaff some more money on the dead horse that is the Ulster Canal.
I had to read the press release many times to understand what is being funded (it is a very clever spinning of words which looks like it is promising a lot but is actually delivering the sum total of sweet fuck all) and all it is is an open air swimming pool in Clones, which they have mislabeled as a marina.
At this stage, I almost wish that there was a deadly virus that was wiping out the world’s population.
Edit 02/05/2021: Below is a map of the area and canal I prepared many years ago, which I have updated by highlighting the section of canal to be “restored” in continuous dark blue. This will be a disjointed section from nowhere to nowhere. The dotted blue either side is the derelict canal.
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Ports Past and Present
Ports, Past and Present is a project that will consist of eight short documentary films and one feature-length film, primarily about the west coast of Wales but which will also feature Dublin Port and Rosslare Harbour. The films will be part of a wider campaign to raise awareness of the rich coastal and maritime heritage of these communities.
To get involved contact the team by emailing Rita Singer ris32@aber.ac.uk or message on Twitter @PortsPastPres or Facebook @portspastandpresent.
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No DART for Ballyfermot
Initial plans for extending the DART to Hazelhatch and Celbridge are being prepared. Early drafts of this plan included a station on the Kylemore Road in Ballyfermot but, according to the Dublin Inquirer, this will not now happen.*
With trains terminating in Heuston Station, a station at Kylemore Road probably does not make sense, however, with DART running through the Phoenix Park Tunnel to Grand Canal Dock or even a new Spencer Dock station beside the existing LUAS station of that name, this would work as part of an overall network.
I will declare an interest here – I live on the Kylemore Road – about 500m from the bridge over the railway. A DART station on my doorstep would work wonders for property values.
However, I am currently considering moving home – likely to be to somewhere along the Maynooth Line in advance of the price rises that will follow commencement of DART construction work on that line.
* Ever conscious of the date, the Dublin Inquirer article is dated 31st March 2021.
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Another greenway you cannot use
Now 1 year into the “new normal” of ‘flatten the curve’, our benevolent overlords are spaffing more money on projects that the majority of the population cannot use as Ireland continues to be an open air prison.
This time, the regime has announced the Royal Canal Greenway from Maynooth, Co. Kildare to Clondara in Co. Longford. Interestingly, as the majority of tax revenue is generated in Dublin, the people of Dublin are paying for this project but will not benefit from it as it is more than 5km away from Dublin.
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A lesser known railway in Ireland
YouTube directed me to this video of a rather ingenious individual living in the West of Ireland, who has started building his own farmyard railway on his property!
There is a second video on his channel showing the process of making fishplates for the track (these are used to join two sections of rail together) and a set of points!
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Station House, Monaghan
Just a link to the website for a new co-working hub located in Monaghan Town, in the former railway station.
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RTE Home of the Year
Another entry in the RTE Home of the Year with an IH connection (one of the railway stations on the Shillelagh Branch in Co. Wicklow featured a few years ago).
This time, it is a former mill in Co. Down which has been converted to a private residence.
Whilst I understand the privacy concerns of the producers/entrants, I’d have thought that the whole point of converting an historic building is that you let it be known where it is (something more specific than “Co. Down”).
The same applied to the railway station entry referenced above, however, as all railway stations known to have existed are well documented, I was able to identify which station it was. This is less so in the case of mill buildings.