‘Change here for Trim and Athboy’
Railway route to follow line of old Great Western line
Last Saturday week, having missed Tommy Tiernan make his singing debut in Mick Flannery's musical, 'The House Must Win' in the Pavilion theatre in Dun Laoghaire, I took a trip to Cork to see a matinee production in the Everyman Theatre.
As it was a weekend excursion, I took the train to the real capital, rather than sitting behind a steering wheel all the way down. It was a most relaxing two and a half hour journey through the lush green countryside, with the church steeples rising high from the villages and towns we passed. A friend lives in Cobh, and it was easy to hop on another train out to that gorgeous town for the evening later on.
On the journey, thoughts turned to the coverage of the fact that Iarnrod Eireann had bought back the old railway station at Adare to accommodate travel to the Ryder Cup competition next year. Having sold it in 2013 for some €216,000, Iarnrod Eireann had now bought it back for €2 million to accommodate a temporary platform for those with the big bucks attending the Ryder Cup in billionaire JP McManus' stately manor. Priorities.
This was not a good look for the State railway company who for the past two decades had been attempting to extend the railway line from Dunboyne to Navan. Facilitating those who were able to fork out huge money to attend a once-off sporting event, while thousands of ordinary folk in Meath were waiting 30 years for a long-promised transport hub.
Ironically, 'The House Must Win' was based on an album, Evening Train', written over 20 years ago by Mick Flannery, with a central theme being the closure of the town railway station and line, the last train ever leaving on new year's eve.
That's exactly what happened in Meath towns during the 1950s and '60s, with the motor car becoming a more popular mode of transport. There had been a vibrant line in operation through the county from 1862, finally closing in 1964, operated by the Great Western Railway Company, and later CIE, until the transport company, under the chairmanship of Tod Andrews, decided that road transport was the way to go.
Kilmessan village was the location of the busy junction station of the Navan/Kingscourt and Trim/Athboy lines, where the guard's familiar shout was "Change here for Trim and Athboy."
Teacher Mrs Reynolds brought her bicycle out from Trim on the train in the mornings and cycled home in the evenings. As well as passengers, horses and cattle were transported via carriages from Drumree and Kilmessan to marts and hunts. There were busy hotels at each stop - the Spencer Arms in Drumree, Mrs Parke’s Railway Hotel in Kilmessan.
While some parts of the old line have been built over, in Kilmessan for instance where Bridge View estate sits on it, and a hotel now occupies the station premises, most of the route is intact, and is set to be declared the preferred route option by Minister for Transport Darragh O'Brien this week. There may be some obstacles along the way, like the wildlife sanctuary at Dunsany Castle, but these are not insurmountable problems in the greater scheme of things.
We have been here before. O'Brien's predecessor, Noel Dempsey, had advanced the project to planning stage and started public consultations in towns and villages along the way when the big bust happened in the late noughties. One thing we forget is that as well as bringing people such as commuting workers out of town, trains also bring people and prosperity into a county. It's long overdue time to correct that massive blunder of closing the rail line over 60 years ago.