industrialheritageireland.info

YouTube directed me to this video of a rather ingenious individual living in the West of Ireland, who has started building his own farmyard railway on his property!

There is a second video on his channel showing the process of making fishplates for the track (these are used to join two sections of rail together) and a set of points!

Another entry in the RTE Home of the Year with an IH connection (one of the railway stations on the Shillelagh Branch in Co. Wicklow featured a few years ago).

This time, it is a former mill in Co. Down which has been converted to a private residence.

Whilst I understand the privacy concerns of the producers/entrants, I’d have thought that the whole point of converting an historic building is that you let it be known where it is (something more specific than “Co. Down”).

The same applied to the railway station entry referenced above, however, as all railway stations known to have existed are well documented, I was able to identify which station it was. This is less so in the case of mill buildings.

For those with deep pockets, a ruined lighthouse on Inis Mór, one of the Aran Islands in Galway, is up for sale with an asking price of €500,000!

I’m not sure what the Aran Islands have going for it that justifies such a price tag – even being first in line for government pork due to speaking a dead language doesn’t justify this.

Just a quick post to link to the Slugger O’Toole blog, which carries a guest post from Northern Irish railway enthusiast Andy Boal, debunking the possibility of a railway tunnel from Scotland to NI.

In the first decade of this millennium, I was involved in the Boyne Navigation branch of the IWAI – taking an active part in restoration work parties on the 1st section of the Boyne Navigation – from the Sea Lock to Oldbridge.

For various reasons connected with the IWAI and not the Boyne Navigation branch, I let my membership of the IWAI lapse.

I note with interest that Meath County Council are proposing to establish a “Boyne Navigation” greenway and have proposed including the restoration of the navigation as part of this.

I wish the Boyne Navigation Branch of the IWAI well for its future in light of this.

In January, I noted the end of peat harvesting in Ireland.

What is the official solution to the needs of the horticulture industry going forward? Nothing but a word salad of deferral and delay in the hope that the problem disappears off the radar.

From the article in the Irish Independent linked to above:

“With boatloads of peat imports now arriving in Ireland – the first shipment from Scotland arrived this week – representatives said they will be forced to rely on peat alternatives from the Baltic States, Sri Lanka, Indonesia and the UK over the coming months as there is no viable peat alternative in Ireland.”

So, in order to reduce Ireland’s carbon footprint, we stop the harvesting of a product in Ireland, in order to import the same product from elsewhere in the world, thereby increasing the global carbon footprint due to transport of the material to Ireland.

The English used to say (and be castigated for it) that the Irish were stupid. I think they had a point.