Irish Railway Architecture

Upon my first visit to Navan in 2018 in search of the railway station I was astounded that such a large town could have had its train service removed, when much smaller villages along the Sligo and Maynooth routes were still connected to the capital. Little did I know that two years later I would marry a Navan-native, settle in the area and pass the station every day, miffed and mournful at its wasted potential. The line opened with ambition 172 years ago in 1850, built by the Dublin and Drogheda Railway as a branch line from Drogheda to Oldcastle. Boyne Valley Railtour at Navan, 1977, Railway Preservation Society of Ireland My station safari was rewarded by passing over the extant railway tracks at the station’s level crossing – the line is still in operation for Tara Mines – and the heralding of the former station master’s house. A typical two-storey GNR example, its red brick man has been pebbled-dashed, disguising the polychromatic contrast intended for the, still exposed, yellow b...

After my pilgrimage to Newgrange via Duleek , my beady eyes follow the railway line westward. At a cross-roads a two-storey building points toward the sky rising above its neighbours, its moulded bargeboards perforated with circular motifs. Bingo.  Former Beauparc Station (Osgood, S.) Beauparc station was opened on the original Drogheda to Navan branch line in 1850. A plaque above the platform-side doorway is impressed with the date 1857 when the station was built. But an outline of pointed red bricks to the middle of the building shows that the upper storey was a later addition. An entry in the GNR Board of Directors’ minutes recorded that a ‘design for improvement’ at Beauparc was carried out in 1894 for £235, which is possibly when the top storey was added.  Just as I take my first picture of the station, the current resident greets me and stands for a good natter telling me about the former station masters and how they came to reside in the station. I commend the addition ...

The branch line from Drogheda to Oldcastle passes through the ancient Boyne Valley landscape of Newgrange toward the Loughcrew Cairns. It was opened to Navan in 1850, first mooted by the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway in 1845, but then managed by the Dublin and Drogheda Railway by the time it opened. Kells was reached by 1853, and then the line extended to Oldcastle in 1863. In 1876 the line was then subsumed into the Great Northern Railway. Duleek is our first stop along this line.  Former Duleek Station and Master's Hosue (Osgood, S.) Along Station Road northward every bungalow is a potential station until the road beneath me bumps over a stone bridge and oop – there’s the former station below on the right hand side. Space for the former cattle-banks lay empty with their access gate still in place. The original iron ‘kissing-gate’ is also in-situ providing access to the platform from the bridge via stone steps. A clever device, it would have prevented precarious slip and tri...

Leaving my Roman sojourn into George Papworth’s Drogheda railway station , I head northward to the Boyne Viaduct. I pass the original Dublin and Drogheda stone engine shed and then – holy moley – the earth falls from under me and the Mesopotamian arch of Ctesiphon is recreated twelve-fold.  Boyne Viaduct (S. Osgood) Agog, I needed to watch my step and not the towering vertigo-inducing spans which rose piercingly from the River Boyne’s embankment. I stopped, composed and consoled myself that the steep steps down would be worth the ascension after my mooching about.  Boyne Viaduct (S. Osgood) Soaring across the Drogheda skyline the Boyne Viaduct was designed by Sir John Macneill (1793-1880) from 1844 and constructed between 1851 and 1855. Twelve round arches span the southern embankment, with three on the northern side, whilst tapering stone piers support the central section. Boyne Viaduct (S. Osgood) Constructed of hand-cut limestone and granite blocks, visual aesthetics were n...

Following my sunny escapade to Laytown my station safari continued to Drogheda - finally . Sitting to the south of the illustrious River Boyne marking County Louth’s dent into County Meath, I drive up the approach ramp to be met with the mini-temple that is Drogheda railway station.  Drogheda Station (Buildings of Ireland) Designed by the renowned architect George Papworth for the Dublin and Drogheda Railway (DDR) the station was not built by the time the line ran its first train from Dublin in 1844. The original holding station was located to the south-west at Newtown, with the opening of Papworth’s station in 1852. The brown-brick station is a nod to neo-Romanesque classicism with its H-plan footprint and stone Tuscan-inspired columned distyle portico, flanked by large rounded arch orders framing the recessed windows in the side-wings. The functional chimneys break the pitched roof bringing the viewer back to the modern-age. The entrance has been sympathetically modernised wit...

 A beautiful sunny afternoon heralded my arrival at the seaside station of Laytown. Alighting from the train the light bounced off the ice-cream yellow paintwork on the former GNR wooden station building.  Originally opened in 1844 by the Dublin and Drogheda Railway, Laytown promised “celebrated Velvet Strands” and it is not difficult to see why: the station is raised above its nearby coastline, offering views across the southern bay to the hinterland of Braymore Point, whilst Bettystown’s strand, famous for horseracing, is located to the north.   The station built by the DDR still stands, now a private residence, as the two-storey rendered house to the entrance of the car park. Although recorded as built around 1847 by Buildings of Ireland, the Dictionary of Irish Architects records an entry in the Dublin Builder from 1865 where a “new station and two workmen's houses recently erected by Dublin & Drogheda Railway Co.”. The architect is unknown, but it can demise...