industrialheritageireland.info

Every so often, something so bizarre comes along that even I take a deep breath.

So it was when I read in the Irish Independent that Irish Rail’s pugnacious PR manager, Barry Kenny, is currently working as a volunteer preparing food for soldiers on the Ukrainian frontline.

Here we have a senior manager in an Irish State Owned Enterprise actively assisting in a war effort against a nuclear power. Someone needs to explain to Barry that Ireland is a neutral State and what that means, in simple English.

One wonders how many Irish Rail employees are volunteering in Syria or Yemen against USA initiated/backed aggression or is State aggression OK if Uncle Sam carries it out?

For the sake of argument, if the war between Russia/Ukraine were to escalate from a proxy war with the West into an actual hot war, how would it look that a senior manager in an Irish State Owned Enterprise was actively assisting in a war effort against a nuclear power?

Let us not forget that during World War 2, when the Free State was neutral, the creamery at Campile in Co. Wexford was bombed by the Nazis, allegedly a “mistake”, however, in all reality, an attack on a food supply for Britain.

Courtesy of the Donegal Daily website, I became aware of the existence of this website, which shows the location of current and former railways on the island of Ireland. They claim that it is also available on the Irish Rail website, but a check of this led nowhere.

The production is reasonable, but only shows the location of the lines and no further details. For a more detailed set of maps of the current and former railways of Ireland, including stations and a page for each of the latter, my railway maps of Ireland can be consulted. The one aspect where this other site is better than mine is that it also shows city tramways, which I have not included on my site.

As a final thought, the article states that the website was developed with the support of Irish Rail. I thought that the State (which Irish Rail is, as a loss making State owned enterprise) was not permitted to fund projects where private capital (mine) has already funded something similar (see above).