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Scrum Diddly Donabate

Having waited patiently at Malahide for my train, the pangs of hunger started. Ah yes, the perennial problem of this station spotter: nibbles. Donabate needed exploring first, however.

As the double-doors of the train carriage beeped to a close behind me, I rather wish I’d brought a bonnet as the delightfully early-Victorian station and its surroundings came into view. Edith Nesbit would feel right at home. First to delight was the GNR signal cabin standing on the platform, with its red brick base and barricaded windows. Why must all of the former cabins now look like nuclear bunkers? At least Buildings of Ireland has it correctly dated to c.1900.
A skip along the platform brings me to a GNR waiting shelter, again it unfortunately stands in a state of dereliction, its glass missing, now covered with boards, and even an iron gate blocking its entrance. It looks more like a jail cell than a passenger convenience.
Adjoining the cell-sorry-shelter is another bunkeresque remnant, this time in the form of a corrugated iron shed. Perhaps I should have brought a metal Brodie helmet instead. This structure does however have its original wooden body, roof lights, and now-blocked windows and doors, so it may have been used as a ticket office for the western platform.
Standing at this spot and facing south, it is clear the original elliptical stone bridge built for the Dublin and Drogheda railway in 1844 has been replaced with a fat cousin, a chunky square-barrelled thing with cement voussoirs. My imaginary bonnet has well and truly blown off.
Redemption appears in the station buildings. Looking like a stage set for Pride a Prejudice, the wonderfully unique wall-moulded sign of DONABATE is certainly pleasing to the period-drama eye. Perhaps Elizabeth Bennett’s bonnet can make an appearance, after all. Buildings of Ireland dates the station to 1890, but this is far too late, as it is not a GNR design.
The original brown-brick station building demonstrates the early manufacturing process whereby charring occurred in the firing resulting in a kaleidoscope of shades. A close look and there appears to be the outline of a former central rounded arch – is this a blocked-up doorway? Or perhaps just a projecting roof? The station also functioned as the station master’s house, explaining the residential appearance of the building.
To the northern projection is a later extension, although Buildings of Ireland confusingly lists this as the earlier of the two buildings, being constructed in 1860. I will now correct this and say that this single-storey addition can be attributed to the GNR owing to the uniformity of brick colour (a result of improved later manufacturing technologies), the semi-arch window and door hoods, and the gabled roofs with their moulded wooden bargeboards.
This assertion is strengthened further by an adjoining square building which has a side-arched opening to the platform, ventilation holes and showcases the yellow brick string-coursing of GNR buildings. This was probably the gentlemen’s urinals.

Moving swiftly on and looking at the Historic Map 25 inch (1888-1913) by the Ordnance Survey, a former track siding can be seen to the west of the station platform. A rather dramatic photograph from 1984 shows the siding with a burnt-out double-decker bus. The Brodie helmet returns.
Source: Cathal O'Brien, Flickr.com
Standing on the road bridge looking down at the station platforms, the footbridge is a modern replacement for the original and more elegant curved lattice design. A photo from 1980 places this with its steps in front of said urinals and the signal cabin. An even earlier photo shows this view without any footbridge, meaning its installation was during the GNR’s tenure and not before (i.e. post-1876).
Source: The Carlisle Kid, Geograph.ie 
Source: Historical Picture Archive
A wonderful photo from 1982 shows the footbridge and road bridge in their original elliptical forms, shadowing each other and pulling the station complex together in harmonised symmetry. A later photo then displays the juxtaposition between the original footbridge and the new concrete installation.

Source: Albert Bridge, Geograph.ie
Source: Donabate Portrane Community Council 
I have another 25 minutes before my onward train and so I pootle around, and looking for a shop to gather much-needed fodder I come across an ice-cream parlour, Scrum Diddly’s. And so, with my metaphoric-bonnet donned, I quote Jane Austen:

“I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.” 


*Edith Nesbit wrote The Railway Children. And I ate all the ice cream and all the sweets. 


Sources:
Geohive.ie
Donabateportranecommunity.com
Historicalpicturearchive.com
Geograph.ie
Geoffspages.co.uk
Flickr.com
Eiretrains.ie
Buildingsofireland.ie

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