Category: Site Updates

Progress on creating maps of the Royal Canal and surrounding areas has gone better than I had anticipated, with the result that I have now put online maps of the canal from Leixlip to Clondra – i.e, only the Dublin section remains to be added.

Part of the reason for this is that my mapping source is ex copyright OS maps, which work fine for rural areas, but, in Dublin, due to development led road additions/realignments, a 50+ year old base map wont work.

Adding of the Dublin map detail will follow, once I can get out driving with a GPS and map the new roads to be added.

I am pleased to announce that I have started to further the utility of the Gazetteer on the site, by adding in the main canals/navigable waterways of Ireland.

The first map to be added is that for Kilcock, which is now live. It is my intention to then add updated maps for the rest of the Royal Canal before proceeding onto the other.

Over the post Christmas period, I took myself up to east Donegal to close out the many missing stations in that area. I booked a self catering apartment just outside Lifford for a few days and used it as a base to cover the lines from Stranorlar to Glenties, Strabane to Letterkenny and Tooban Junction to Letterkenny, covering most stations thereon.

The photos taken and station pages updates have now been added to the gazetteer.

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:

• 85 main maps instead of 65, allowing for a cleaner look
• Railway/canal based greenways are included*
• Primary rivers added
• The main canals have been added
• LUAS lines and stations added (webpages for these are in progress)
• The ability to add more detailed inset maps (a start has been made on this – see Monaghan Town for an example).

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?

• Canal locks to be added and a webpage for each
• LUAS stations to get a webpage
• Inset maps to be improved on with main roads added to give better context
• Addition of opening/closing dates for all stations
• An active effort to visit the station locations that remain without a photo taken.

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.