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!