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.
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| 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 trips by man and animal alike.
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| 'Kissing-Gate' (Osgood, S.) |
The still-active train line runs under the road with a handsome hammered-stone and red brick elliptical bridge. On the platform the former stone and red brick station and white rendered station master’s house both stand as detached neighbours, kept in loving condition as private residences. Their affinity to the GNR architectural network is denoted by the brick-accented window and door surrounds and quoins, whilst the master’s house retains its semi-architrave lintels and wooden finial above the front porch.
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| Former Station Master's House (Osgood, S.) |
The Irish Builder recorded that a new station was to be built at Duleek in 1891, contracted to local builder Stephen Henly. This date would correspond with the GNR ownership, as well as the style of architecture, but it is unclear what type of station originally stood here when the line opened from 1850.
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| Duleek road-over-rail bridge (Osgood, S.) |
As the sun appears I make my way down to get a better look at underneath the bridge, and the ivy shakes and rattles around my feet. I gasp – a rat! As it squeaks past me I leap for the platform and am rewarded for my bravery by the intricate brickwork underneath the road bridge. The line is now used by Tara Mines so I don’t hang around too long, running the gauntlet of rodents to make my way back to the road.
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| Duleek road-over-rail bridge (Osgood, S.) |
An original iron sunburst gate survives to the access road, its design first used by Thomas Telford on the A5 London-Holyhead Road. Telford’s assistant for the A5 was John Macneill, who was the engineer to the Dublin and Belfast Junction Railway. A lovely piece of engineering history to evidence the once active railway station.
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| Sunburst gate (Osgood, S.) |
The GNR Board of Directors’ Minutes recorded that a porter’s cottage was built at Duleek in 1902 at a cost of £230, tendered for by Herbert H Henly of Balbriggan, who must have been the station builder’s son. Another indelible link to Ireland’s industrial past! This house is quite possibly the small bungalow on Station Road toward the town centre. Slight shadows on the white paint show where the original brick quoins to the corners would have been.
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| Former porter's house (Osgood, S.) |
In 1977 a Railway Preservation Society of Ireland
Boyne Valley Railtour passed Duleek with a wonderful photograph capturing locals waving at the engine driver. The station behind them stands in a state of neglect, slates missing from the roof. It is heartening to see then, that today both station and master’s house are well-kept family homes.
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| Boyne Valley Railtour at Duleek (RPSI) |
And now, with the next station at Beauparc beckoning, I head out for my drive along the Boyne Valley to make my own passage through history, with Newgrange as my pit-stop.
Sources
Tom Ferris, Irish Railways: A New History
Dictionary of Irish Architects
Railway Preservation Society of Ireland
Geohive.ie