Categories
IH News 2025

Woodbrook Station

The latest railway station in Ireland has opened. Woodbrook Station on the DART line, between Bray and Shankill, opened on 10th August 2025.

I managed to get out there on the opening day and managed to nab a free ice cream cone (courtesy of Irish Rail or the developer of the adjacent residential development, I don’t know).

I also spotted Irish Rail’s Barry Kenny and CEO Jim Meade in conversation on the concourse outside the station. I did think of saying hello, but I don’t think either gentleman would have wanted their Sunday ruined by having one of their biggest critics identify himself.

Categories
Overseas

Pre-historic miners in Europe

The Smithsonian magazine site has an interesting article about a 3D rendering of 2 female skeletons found in a chert mine* in what is now modern day Czech Republic.

The bones of the skeletons were carbon dated to between 4050 and 4340 B.C.E., making them 6,000 years old.

* Chert was used to make stone tools and weapons

Categories
General

Keeping up with the law

As with most Government entities, Irish Rail tends towards fascism when enforcing laws in their favour whilst not applying a similar standard to rules that apply to them (I’d cite the closure of Dunleer station in 1985 without the requisite 2 months notice required by law, but on a technicality, that would fail as it was CIE that did that – Irish Rail only came into existence in 1987).

I recently commented on the report by the RAIU on track access by passengers at Navan Road Parkway. One of the points raised in this report was that information posters which could have allowed imprisoned passengers to contact Irish Rail, contained a phone number which was no longer in use.

I spotted the information poster below on a train recently and checked out what EC Regulation 1371 states. According to the eur.lex.europa.eu site, this regulation was repealed in 2023, stating:

“No longer in force, Date of end of validity: 06/06/2023; Repealed by 32021R0782“

Makes you wonder what other misinformation about the law is put out.

Categories
General

Pretty in pink

Over the decades of taking photos of Ireland’s railway built heritage, I noticed that different periods see station buildings and other paintable structures in one particular colour across the network, which would suggest that Irish Rail buy their paint in bulk.

Looking back across my archive (over 15,000 railway images), there was a period where yellow was the norm and another where grey took over.

Passing through the walkway in Connolly Station from Amiens Street to the IFSC, I noticed a section of the wall painted in pink. Any bets on pink station buildings in the second half of this decade?

Connolly Station walkway.
Connolly Station walkway. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2024
Categories
Events

Heritage Week 2025

I decided to leave compiling the Heritage Week listing until later this year, rather than having to do multiple reviews of the listings. The list of IH related events in Heritage Week is now online here.

There is a significant reduction in the number of IH related events this year, compared to previous years, which is regrettable.

Categories
IH News 2025

A Reverse United Ireland

The Irish Government has just published a new development plan for the country, proposing investment in many areas of infrastructure and services.

The images on the front cover of the report include an image of a train. However, an unfortunate error has occurred in that the image included is that of an NIR railcar and not a train from the Republic of Ireland.

Rather than the shibboleth of the Republic of Ireland taking over Northern Ireland, it looks like the National Development Plan is proposing the opposite.

Categories
Locations

The Dark Hedges

I can honestly put my hand on my heart and state that I have never watched the drama series “Game of Thrones”. However, I am aware that there is a feature in this known as the “Dark Hedges”, which is a real location in Co. Antrim.

I was in Antrim over the June bank holiday weekend taking photos of the former railway lines to Ballycastle and Retreat and as it so happens, the Dark Hedges are located adjacent to the site of the former Gracehill Station on the long closed Ballymoney to Ballycastle line.

Damage caused by Storm Eowyn in January 2025 can be seen on the left.

The "Dark Hedges", Gracehill, Co. Antrim. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2025
The “Dark Hedges”, Gracehill, Co. Antrim. Copyright Ewan Duffy 2025
Categories
IH News 2025

Connolly Station – behind the scenes

The Irish Independent has a video interview with Barry Kenny of Irish Rail, going behind the scenes at Connolly Station. This includes a visit to the Central Traffic Control (CTC).

Categories
DART+WEST IH News 2025

DART+WEST en route

RTE (and others) are reporting that the High Court objections to DART+WEST to Maynooth have been dropped and the project can now proceed.

Having said that, the lack of a depot stymies the plan and Irish Rail need to progress this latter urgently. I remain of the view that the appropriate location of this is west of Kilcock (adjacent to the Musgraves depot) with a Park & Ride site and new station on the Sligo side of the old N4 road overbridge.

I would also suggest another station to the east of the present one, opposite Millerstown with a footbridge over the Royal Canal to facilitate greater access to same. This would allow for the closure of the current town station, facilitating track realignment on an easier curve than presently permitted at this location, as well as overcoming the difficulty of having 2 platforms at the current station site.

Categories
History

Dublin Whiskey Fire 1875

The Dublin Whiskey Fire of 1875 took place on 18 June 1875 – 150 years ago today.

At a high level, the fire started in Malone’s malt house, where there was also a bonded warehouse, on Chamber Street in the Liberties area of Dublin.

For further details, see this blogpost on The Pot Still blog.