Details of site updates
I thought that I had my final trip taking photos/site visits for 2025, but the mild weather today led me north again on a mopping up exercise in Co. Down.
I managed to visit half a dozen sites today that I had previously missed for various reasons and these photos will be added to the site over the next few weeks.
I am acutely aware that the primary focus of this site has been the railway built infrastructure of the island of Ireland, due to the fact that my underlying interest in industrial heritage lies in that area.
Now that I am coming close to completion of the development of the railway aspect of the online gazetteer, it is time to start looking at the canals of Ireland.
I already have extensive coverage of the Ulster Canal and the Lagan Navigation and the next canal I intend to add detail to on the gazetteer is the Royal Canal, primarily because it is the one closest to where I live and therefore the easiest to complete.
As the towpath outside of Dublin can be hit and miss, Winter is not the time to be cycling this and the plan is to work on the back end (map, location links etc) over the next 3 months with a view to adding in photographs in 2026.
However, I have, over the last couple of weekends, cycled from Kilcock to Castleknock along the towpath and photographed the bridges/locks etc. One final bike trip from Castleknock to Dublin city should finish this section.
The plan would then be to do two day trips by train with bike to cover Longford to Mullingar and Mullingar to Kilcock.
I am happy to announce that I recently visited the Clogher Valley and took photos at the site of the former halts along the first half of the line (from Tynan to Augher exclusive).
The CVR had a small number of traditional stations, with a station building and platforms, but had many more roadside halts in between these along the length of their line. I already had the former on the Gazetteer and have now updated the maps to include the latter between Tynan and Augher exclusive. Individual pages for each of these stopping places have also been created.
Weather intervened to prevent me from getting beyond Augher (I did make it to Augher and had a coffee and cake in the cafe in the former Augher station building). This will likely be a 2026 update for the remainder of the line unless an Indian summer hits Ireland in the next month or so.
I have now added webpages and photo galleries for the LUAS to the Gazetteer. All such stations can be accessed off the following map.
I have resumed processing the photos I took recently and updating these to the Gazetteer.
I am happy to announce that those of all stations on the former line from Scarva to Newcastle via Banbridge are now online.
For the past while, I have working away in the background on version 2 of the Gazetteer and am happy to announce that this has now gone live, with the old version swapped out and the new version online.
Part of the reason that an upgrade has taken so long is that I insisted on ensuring that the underlying data to populate the webpages for each station was structured correctly in my Access database which I use to record the data and create the webpages. This had secondary advantages of uncovering some errors, which have been fixed in the course of the project and allowing me to setup my system to more efficiently create new or updated webpages.
Updates to the gazetteer include:
In addition to this, I have updated all the station sites with a latitude/longitude co-ordinate as more appropriate to the Googlemaps era than an Ordnance Survey Map. The OS grid reference remains as a secondary geo reference.
WHAT’S NEXT?
In relation to the latter, I have made a start on this, with recent weekend trips to Downpatrick and Derry enabling me to visit a large number of formerly un-visited stations in Counties Derry, Tyrone and Down. Now that I have gone live on the updated gazetteer, I can resume processing the photographs taken on these trips and get them online.
*This is something of a work in progress. The main greenways (e.g Waterford Dungarvan, Mullingar Athlone) are marked. Smaller sections of old railway now in use as a public walkway will be added if/when I become aware of them.
I have finally updated the photos taken at the three stations on the former Midleton to Youghal railway, now a greenway (Mogeely, Killeagh and Youghal) and these are available to see via the Gazetteer.
A second update – having spent today in Northern Ireland taking photos, I now have recent photos of most of the canal. The only missing section is that from Maydown through the Benburb cutting to Milltown (both exclusive). With the information I had to hand in the field, I could not do this section justice and as such, will make a return trip to cover this section.
I have also added an inset map of Clones to the Ulster Canal map.
As I stayed overnight in Northern Ireland on Saturday, I productively used the trip up there to photograph the station sites on the now fully opened greenway from Navan to Kingscourt and also visited the sites of Glenanne and Loughgilly stations in Co. Armagh. These will also be added to the site shortly.
I have updated the page for the Ulster Canal with a better map, as well as links off this for the 26 locks on the former canal.
This is a work in progress, with not all locks having a photo page created yet – I plan on being in Northern Ireland on Sunday to visit the sites I didn’t get to in July and these will be added to the site (and linked off the aforementioned page) when available.
The last ghost station on the Irish Rail network is no more – Kishoge Station in Dublin on the Dublin – Cork line is now open, as of 26th August 2024.
I have updated the Gazetteer to reflect this and created a webpage for same. No photo yet – I will get to this shortly.