I was out and about today to get a photo of the site of Straffan Station for the Gazetteer. Whilst the station has long since disappeared, when driving by the former station road entrance, I noticed a railway cottage remaining that I had never spotted before:
I can’t show the photo I took as my camera has since died and I don’t have a memory card reader.
I missed this one when it happened – on 25th July 2021, a fire in the kitchen of Hartley’s restaurant in Dun Laoghaire (located in the former Dublin and Kingstown Railway terminus) broke out, closing the restaurant that was due to reopen.
I hope that the building will be retained and restored.
One of the ongoing issues faced by Irish Rail is bridge strikes – primarily caused by overheight lorries hitting railway overbridges.
A substantial number of railway overbridges are height restricted, unlike modern day road over road bridges, hence it is not often that you hear of a bridge strike that is not railway related.
Looking out my back window, I see a rainbow ending roughly where Inchicore railway works is.
The only pot of gold there is the site value when CIE Property get to demolish it and sell the site off for housing.
For the last 15 months or so of this new abnormal, I have been wondering whether or not to bother continuing with this site, but have recently decided to do so.
As part of the process for relaunching the site, I am checking various sections of the site outside of WordPress prior to reloading the entire site to my webhost. This includes checking links to external sites and one of these was to the Dundalk Museum.
For the uninitiated, this is located in a former tobacco warehouse and its primary focus is industrial heritage. Upon following the link to the site, the following message is displayed:
The Dundalk Museum website has been taken down.
If you have any queries, please contact Brian Walsh – Brian.Walsh@louthcoco.ie
In an era where government is throwing money (that it doesn’t have) at anything that moves and one where overseas travel is actively discouraged, the removal of a website dedicated to a tourist attraction in the Republic of Ireland is inappropriate and a false economy.
industrialheritageireland.info calls on Louth County Council to reinstate this website immediately. I wont even blink if they claim that doing so would be to “build back better”.
I will declare a conflict of interest here – I don’t believe that COVID19 is anything more than a bad flu season and mask wearing is virtue signalling.
The question does arise though, in the case of those reported to Irish Rail for doing lines of cocaine off train tables, were they wearing masks?
The Irish Independent reports that a dig is to take place in St. Anne’s Park, Raheny, at the site of the former mansion, to determine what remains beneath the earthen mounds covering same.
St. Anne’s was the country residence of Lord Ardilaun of the Guinness family.
Spain has the Caminito Del Rey, Switzerland has the Torrent Neuf.
The latter is a 15th Century, suspended water leat system which was used to divert water from glaciers to otherwise dry valleys. Per the BBC, some 200 such systems spanning 1,800km in length still operate. One such systems is the Torrent Neuf. Initially put out of service in 1935, it was restored in 2013 as a tourist attraction.
Dublin People reports on the unveiling of a new plaque on the outer wall of the Diageo complex on Victoria Quay, Dublin, commemorating the Guinness barges which previously operated between the quay and Dublin port.
The previous plaque was stolen many years ago – hopefully, this one will survive.
Update 18th August 2021 – photo of the new plaque:
Not in Ireland (but I am genuinely surprised that CIE haven’t tried this as an excuse).
Thankfully, the local council have stepped in and demanded that they apply for retrospective planning permission (I hope that this is to allow the council to refuse such permission).