Tracking Ireland's railway history

IRELAND'S first railway was opened between Dublin and Kingstown—now Dún Laoghaire—in 1834, just nine years after the pioneering Stockton and Darlington opened for traffic. The Irish line made history as the world’s first commuter railway. Steam-powered, it was built to the standard British gauge of four feet eight-and-a-half inches between the rails and today’s modern, electric DART trains still use the route on their way to and from Greystones.

At the other end of the county, the Ulster Railway reached Lisburn from Belfast in 1837, but it was built to a gauge of six feet two inches, and—after plans were laid to link Dublin and Belfast by rail—the government realised that all the country’s mainline railways would have to be the same gauge, if they were to serve the whole island efficiently.

Cue Major Pasley of the Board of Trade. He took one look at the two widest and narrowest gauges and split the difference, the result being five feet three inch gauge, the national standard used north and south of today’s border. This means that locomotives, coaches and freight wagons have always had to be specially built to run on Irish rails, while any chance of train ferries linking Britain and Ireland were dashed.

Interestingly, Irish railway engineers took their track width with them to parts of Australia, where it’s still known as ‘The Irish Gauge’ and you’ll also find their influence in Brazil, where trains run on five foot three inch tracks, too.

Back home in Ireland, railway development was rapid, right up until the end of the 19th century. Mainlines radiated out across the country, linking Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Galway and Derry. The railway was almost the internet of its day.

When private enterprise baulked at building lines into sparsely-populated counties such as Donegal, Clare and Kerry, the British Government stepped in with public cash to open up the areas, and, hopefully their industries, such as agriculture and fishing. As part of a drive to kill Nationalism with kindness, a series of narrow gauge lines—built to the three foot gauge—were opened, in Donegal, in particular, to places such as Killybegs, Glenties and Burtonport. By the time of the last government line opening in 1903, Donegal was served by a network of narrow gauge railways spreading out from Derry and Strabane, where they met mainline trains.

Operated by the County Donegal Railways Joint Committee and the Londonderry & Lough Swilly Railway, these lines really did open up Donegal to tourism and some light industries, while fishing—especially at ports such as Killybegs and Burtonport—flourished. The woollen trade thrived and cattle exports soared, but sadly, the new railways made it all-too-easy for people to get to Derry, for the Derry boat to Glasgow, and to Moville, for the liners to an even further-away new life in the United States of America.

That the railways boosted emigration for a country still reeling from the effects of the Great Hunger, is clear to see, while the British Government also saw the railways as a tool to keep the country under its thumb, with the new lines making it easier to move troops around the country.

Battle lines and border posts

That’s why, when the War of Independence broke out, the IRA regarded the railways as a strategic target and took to raiding trains, confiscating mail bound for the British authorities and blowing up lines. The railwaymen made a principled stand, by refusing to operate trains carrying British troops or Royal Irish Constabulary police. Their action, known as the munitions strike, cost many railway staff their jobs and, in several instances, their lives—especially at the cruel hands of the Black and Tans.

The ensuing Civil War also saw the railways under fire from both sides and the subsequent border imposed after the end of the war, resulted in customs posts being set up, which disrupted traffic on lines crossing the border. That was particularly damaging to the Donegal lines as they were cut off from their natural port in Derry and there is no doubt that the border led to their premature demise, resulting in Donegal being cut off fully from the Irish railway network when the last line—serving St Johnstone, Carrigans and Porthall—closed in 1965.

After the Civil War, the railways—both North and South, where a large number of small companies had been amalgamated into one grouping, the Great Southern Railways—began to experience competition from private bus and lorry owners. In the fledgling statelet of Northern Ireland—where the railways were run by the cross-border, Dublin-based, Great Northern Railway of Ireland, which operated the crack expresses between Dublin and Belfast, the London Midland & Scottish Railway Northern Counties Committee and the Belfast & County Down Railway—all was not well.

The GNR found its lines crossing the border between Dundalk and Enniskillen stopping no less that eight times, with customs posts all along the way, while passengers for Bundoran in Donegal, travelling to the seaside resort and in season to St Patrick’s Purgatory at Pettigo, were accommodated on the ‘Bundoran Express’—effectively a sealed train that could not stop anywhere in Northern Ireland. The damage done by the artificial border was massive.

In 1933, a national strike, was called by railwaymen—North and South—for better pay and conditions, but, in the North, it was interpreted by Unionists as an attempt to bring down their recently-established statelet. Although the strike ended in defeat for the railwaymen, the Stormont Government vowed to seek revenge because their administration did come perilously close to collapse as goods ceased to flow, and set its face against the railways. After a series of brutal closures—especially of lines serving Nationalist areas such as Strabane, the railway gateway to Donegal—the Unionists had succeeded in closing everything in the North with the exception of the Belfast-Derry line via Coleraine, the branch to Bangor, the line to the ferries at Larne, and the mainline, south to the border. Privately-owned lorry firms—encouraged by the Unionist Government—took over all freight from the railways, leaving the six counties with the very small railway system it has today.

Meanwhile, down south, the railways carried on much as they had been doing, but some branch lines—serving the extremities of the system to places such as Dingle, Clifden and Achill—had been closed and replaced by buses and lorries in the 1930s. Overall, however, the then Free State, took a much more enlightened view of its railways, regarding them a national asset, and, in the 1930s, a class of advanced steam locomotives was turned out from Inchicore Works in Dublin, to speed up the crack Dublin-Cork expresses.

World War II and beyond

The railways almost ground to a halt during World War II, or ‘The Emergency’ as it was known south of the border, as coal imports from Britain stopped and—despite the efforts of Ireland’s only coal mine at Arigna in County Leitrim, to fill the gap—hundreds of trains were cancelled, and it was a struggle to keep goods moving across the country, especially special trains of turf from remote places such as Donegal, running to Dublin to keep the capital’s home fires burning. So desperate was the Lough Swilly Railway to keep trains going to and from remote Gweedore that its locomotive had to burn turf for several years—an impossible task for drivers and fireman alike.

However, as early as 1931, the County Donegal Railways had pioneered the use of diesel traction in the shape of a railcar—literally a bus on rails, running between Strabane and Killybegs. Not only did it cut costs—and was operated by the driver alone —but it could stop at remote road crossing and townlands, just like a road bus, and provide a superb service to a scattered, rural community.

As the brainchild of the line’s resourceful manager, Henry Forbes, the diesel railcars attracted enormous attention from the railway world, and Forbes went on to develop them until he had a fleet of sophisticated, by the standards of the days, diesel railcars, replacing steam passenger trains by the early 1940s.

Diesels were also developed by the GNR and the LMS NCC in the north, while, in 1932, one of the first battery railcars in the world was developed for the Great Southern Railway by Dr James Drumm—a Dublin academic, whose Drumm battery powered the trains between Dublin and Bray with great success. At the other end of the spectrum, the Great Northern Railway provided branch services between Fintona Junction on the Enniskillen-Omagh route and Fintona, by a horse tram, pulled by a four-legged locomotive named Dick!

Irish railways had plenty of character in those days, but, after the Emergency, in the south the Irish Government, nationalised the lines under the banner of Córas Iompair Éireann, CIÉ, Ireland’s Transport Company, which also took over the Great Southern Railway buses and road haulage fleets, as well as the trams and buses in Dublin, with the aim being to provide a unified public transport system.

Up north, the nationalised Ulster Transport Authority was formed to do the same, but the balance was skewed towards bus replacements of railway services and the Unionist Government celebrated the formation of the UTA by closing down the entire Belfast & County Down Railway system in 1950, leaving only its Bangor line intact. That cast a shadow over the other lines to Larne, Derry and Dublin and a great deal of uncertainty for rail workers.

In 1953, the Great Northern Railway of Ireland declared itself bankrupt, after being ravaged by the effects of the border on its line, soaring costs and competition from private lorry and car traffic. The Belfast and Dublin governments—which had studiously ignored one another since partition—sat down formally, for the first time, to discuss the crises. The result was the formation of the Great Northern Railway Board, which ran the lines jointly, in a then-unique show of North-South co-operation. But, in 1958, Stormont pulled out and the GNR assets were split, North and South, between the UTA and CIÉ, with many closures of former GNR lines taking place.

Down south, matters were much rosier, with CIÉ being the first railway in Europe to fully convert to diesel traction. Freight remained buoyant and CIÉ was known for innovations such as Radio Trains for tourists going to Killarney, and, even the design and trial of a modern, turf-burning locomotives, to use the country’s natural resources!

Today’s systems

By the end of the 1960s, the Republic had the bones of its system of today, with efficient commuter lines round both Dublin and Cork and intercity trains running to places such as Belfast, Dundalk, Drogheda, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Sligo, Ballina, Westport, Killarney, Tralee and Rosslare. There was investment in fast and frequent electric trains in the Dublin area, under the banner of DART—Dublin Bay Area Rapid Transit—while there was investment in new carriages, powerful diesel locomotives and new track to bring the Republic’s system up to a standard as good as anything in Europe.

Even on Northern Ireland Railways, the tide has turned with investment in a new North West Transport Hub and an enhanced train service for Derry, new diesel trains and plans to re-open the mothballed Antrim-Lisburn line to serve Belfast International Airport by rail. Above all, 2024 saw the opening of the multi-million, Belfast Grand Central Station. It not only integrates rail and bus services under one roof, and is the terminal for the crack, Belfast-Dublin ‘Enterprise’ expresses, now hourly on weekdays, but the station also has enough platform space built-in to allow expansion of the railway system.

That’s because both governments, North and South, have co-operated fully to research and publish a strategic review of the railways on the whole island of Ireland. There are plans for lines such as the Portadown-Derry line—brutally closed by the Stormont Government in 1965—to be re-opened, while a branch off the re-opened railway, will service Letterkenny, ending Donegal’s six-decade-long isolation from the railway system. Pressure groups in Donegal—while welcoming this move, which removes Letterkenny’s discouraging status as the largest town in the Republic not served by rail—say that it’s not enough. They want to see trains re-instated between Derry, Ballybofey, Donegal Town, Ballyshannon and Bundoran, and onwards to Sligo, giving the county back the connectivity it lost after the last sections of the County Donegal Railways were closed in 1959.

A look at the current railway map of Ireland will reveal a vast gap in and around the border counties, and the review acknowledges that the injustices of the past must be made good, especially given climate change imperatives, to move people out of cars on to rail, and, crucially to win back freight traffic, most of which was lost to lorries more than 50 years ago.

If the rail review is implemented, accessing Donegal from across Ireland will change out of all recognition, while, on both sides of the border, rail will regain the position it enjoyed before World War I, and its subsequent road vehicle revolution.

Getting back on track

Irish railways, then, have a rich and colourful history. They were largely built after the Great Hunger and brought a social revolution to the places they served introducing remote, rural parts of Ireland to the concept of time, and bringing in new products and foods, such as mass-produced bread and consumer goods, too. Sadly, they also made emigration easier, but they gave steady employment to thousands of railwaymen and women and played their part in trade union development across the country.

In Scotland, we think of reaching Ireland—and Donegal in particular—by car, bus, ferry or plane. About 100 years ago—and even up until the 1950s—everyone went by boat and train, with places such as Donegal being better connected by public transport than today. As late as the 1960s—even after the County Donegal Railways had replaced their trains with buses—it was still possible to buy a through ticket to anywhere on the CDR system from Glasgow Central Station, something that is impossible today.

If you’ve enjoyed this quick jaunt through Irish railway history, on tracks broad and narrow, then take a train trip next time you’re over by. You won’t be disappointed. Trains are modern, reliable, and welcome passengers at very reasonable fares. Interestingly, there was no privatisation of the railways, north or south in the 1980s, as in the UK.

Both jurisdictions took one look at what was happening over here and decided it wasn’t for them. The advantages of state-owned, fully integrated, railway systems are clear to see, and, if you ride the Irish rails, you’ll be able to benefit from just that. Just the ticket, as you might say!