Sparrowsland was a temporary terminus on the line from Palace East, short of the DW&WR railway line at Macmine (which became Macmine Junction when the line from Palace East finally connected).
By looking at the 25 inch OS maps online, I have figured out where this was and have added a page to the Gazetteer reflecting this.
The BBC has a video report on a project in Newmills, Co. Tyrone, involving the local community, including children, in conducting an archaeological dig at the site of a former mill.
I am going through my old photos and came across one of the former loco shed and water tower at Athboy, Co. Meath, taken in 2000:
The site has since been adaptively reused as housing – see Google Street view below:
I only recently found out about this, notwithstanding that I live only a couple of miles away (always the way that you don’t visit something on your doorstep).
In the People’s Garden section of the Phoenix Park (south east corner of the park), there is a memorial bust to 1916 volunteer Sean Heuston, after whom, Heuston Station is named.
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?