Skip to main content

You Don’t Stop Talking…


On Thursday 12 April I gave a guest lecture to members of the Irish Railway Record Society (IRRS) at Heuston Station, Dublin, about the architecture of the Great Northern Railway as demonstrated at Dundalk. This was followed by another hour of questions and discussion with the audience after a much-needed tea break!


Buildings featured included Dundalk Station, houses at Demesne Terrace, Ardee Terrace and Brook Street, as well as key buildings at the old engineering works: the boiler shop, works offices and goods stores. Each showcase the core architectural features used by the GNRI: black, red and yellow brick-accenting – I call it ‘brick-branding’ – arched and curved window frames and ocular pediments.





One very interesting development was following my suggestion using evidence from the IRRS archives that the original ‘old station’ at Dundalk was to the east of the Dublin-Belfast line. Ciaran Cooney followed this up with a digitised OS map in University College Dublin archives clearly showing the old station, its rooms and a footbridge connecting to the platform on the west side of the tracks. Mystery solved!


I am going to be giving this talk along with this new discovery for the Dundalk Railway Heritage Society at the County Museum,Dundalk on Thursday 24 May 2018 at 7pm. 

In the words of Chas and Dave, more rabbit than Sainsbury’s!

Popular posts from this blog

Valley of the Engineers: The Boyne Viaduct

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...
Read more

Howth-a-ya?

Following festive frolics, a dose of a head cold and a birthday (ugh), it’s time to get back to the good stuff: blog posts! So let’s get back to my day of station-spotting which concluded at Howth. Dublin’s riviera promised sunshine, a beach, cliffs and overpriced seafood. The perfect end to a perfect day out. Howth Station's original Georgian frontage Having only seen the Georgian front of Howth Station (I got the bus here a few months back), my eyes deceived me by delivering me to a Mills-style GNRI station, complete with yellow, red and black bricks, as per my first true love, Dundalk. Platform-side Mills brickwork But it was not a mirage. Lurking behind tourists I waited for the platform to clear, camera at-hand ready to snap as-empty-a-platform-as-possible on a busy sunny August Bank Holiday Monday. Taking a photo of the somewhat weed-covered brickwork, a tourist-lemming appeared at my elbow with an irritating ‘cer-chik’. You can turn that sound-effect off, y’know...
Read more

Watt a Shock: Sutton

Nearing the end of my day-excursion  stopping at the stations along the way to Howth, the calm twinkling sea guided my train into Sutton railway station. Sutton Station - platform view An unassuming building, Sutton Station is a simple white-washed, single-storey Georgian example of functional symmetry. The projecting iron and wood (not glass) veranda jaggedly but gracefully sweeps towards the building mirroring the ironworks’ curves. The ‘GNR’ emblem finishes the company's decorative addition. 'GNR' emblem under station canopy Opened as Baldoyle & Sutton in 1846, it was renamed Sutton in 1901 until 1916 when it was renamed as Sutton and Baldoyle. It reverted again to Sutton in 1935. The footbridge is a modern replacement of the original lattice-girder design favoured by the GNRI and its chief engineer, William Hemingway Mills. Tickets please!  Shown above is that the station building was originally natural stone colour, and not white. I particularly like...
Read more