Categories
IH News 2024

Kilmacthomas station building

The Irish Examiner reports that Waterford City and County Council are to convert the former station building at Kilmacthomas on the Waterford – Dungarvan Greenway to tourist accommodation.

The plans (part of a bigger scheme to do likewise with a former bank building in Lismore) will see the station building have 2 units capable of hosting 4 people. A separate unit will also be built to house a model railway based on the former railway line. The ongoing management of the venture will be managed by third parties.

industrialheritageireland.info commends WCCC on these initiatives.

Categories
IH News 2024

Farewell to Yorkgate and Great Victoria Street

I was up in Belfast today, taking photographs of Yorkgate station building and Great Victoria Street station. The specific reason for an urgent trip to Belfast was the impending demolition of both.

In the case of the latter, Translink are developing a new bus/rail interchange station, to be called “Grand Central Station” and due to the layout of this, Great Victoria Street station (which only reopened in 1995) is to close on 10 May 2024, after which it will be demolished. Its replacement is not due to open until 2025.

Separately, Translink have built a new station building at the renamed Yorkgate Station (now York Street, although the platform signs as of today still said Yorkgate) and the old (1992) building and footbridge are to be demolished on 6 May 2024.

I also took the opportunity to take a photograph of the site of Queen’s Quay station and visit Magheramorne – the latter was the last open station in Ireland that I had never visited, a status it lost today.

Categories
History

Cornish design engine houses

I found this video on YouTube today, which explains what a Cornish design mine engine house is.

Whilst this uses examples from Cornwall, the man engine house in Allihies, Co. Cork, which was successfully conserved by the Mining Heritage Trust of Ireland, is a Cornish design engine house and is the only example of its kind in Ireland.

Categories
Events

Pierce’s Foundry, Wexford

A talk about the history of Pierce’s Foundry, Wexford, will be hosted by the Wexford Historical Society on 24th April 2024 at 8pm in Clayton White’s Hotel in Wexford.

All are welcome – entry is free to Wexford Historical Society members, with an entrance fee of €5 for non-members.

Categories
Events

Castlecomer Railway

There is a talk on the Castlecomer railway branch, focused on the intermediate station of Corbetstown, being held in The Cave Bar, Corbetstown, Co. Kilkenny at 8pm on 16th April 2024.

Admission is free and all are welcome.

Categories
History

Limerick’s first car registrations

Of what relevance to IH is car registrations, in Limerick or anywhere?

There is no direct relevance, however, as newfangled and expensive inventions, the first motor cars were, unsurprisingly, owned by people with money and familiarity with machinery.

Per this Limerick Post article, in Limerick, this happened to be members of the Goodbody family, the Quakers from Clara of milling fame. Another early entry on the list of Limerick motor registrations was Cleeve’s Condensed Milk Factory in Limerick.

Categories
History

The Killala Branch

This is a link to a brief history of the railway from Ballina to Killala.

Categories
IH News 2024

William Hogg RIP

It is with regret that I post to note the passing of William Hogg, author of Millers & the Mills of Ireland of about 1850 and other works and leading light in the Mills and Millers of Ireland society.

Categories
IH News 2024

Reinstatement of part of Londonderry & Lough Swilly Railway

At first glance, this news article, flagging a planning permission notice looks interesting. Upon digging deeper, it just becomes confusing.

The planning permission notice is No. 2450084 in Donegal Co. Council. What is being sought is, in fact, retention permission – i.e., the work is already done.

The permission notice suggests that the land on either side of the original railway line has been lowered, bringing the line’s route back to being on an embankment and the land owner is seeking permission to retain this arrangement.

Categories
Site Updates

Update to the Gazetteer

The main feature of this site, that is a work in progress (due to the scale of what is required) is the Gazetteer. Currently, this is railway stations only but the long term plan is to cover all IH features.

One thing that has been holding me back is how to efficiently get information out of the master database I have developed over three decades of my interest in IH (stored in Microsoft Access). In the last week, I cracked this problem in relation to the creation of photo pages for the photos I have taken and placed online.

The other area I have been aware that my site was lacking in was presentation. The html pages are basic (largely hand coded html) without CSS and associated stylesheets.

I have now updated all stations (barring 2 minor stations) on the Dublin to Sligo line with a new format (using CSS) that I intend to roll out to all locations. The new photo gallery pages for each location are now a link to a separate page (see here for Mullingar as an example) for each photo, with a narrative explaining the image.

During the update of the pages for the Sligo line, I encountered a few errors in the data in my underlying database and these have also been corrected. This is a secondary benefit of this process.

It is my intention to continue the rollout of this new format across the site.