Irish Railway Architecture

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 Coll...

Welcome to my first post! A quick introduction: my name is Siobhan and I’m researching the architecture of the Great Northern Railway in Ireland. About me   Why? Across its original network the GNRI has some of the finest examples of railway architecture. This includes stations built of yellow bricks, red bricks, in cottage-styles, and with Italianate towers – sometimes all at once! The GNRI had one of the most architecturally dominant engineering works in Ireland located in Dundalk. It is an array of vast workshops and offices, and still stands today. Read my article in Architecture Ireland to find out more about it. Then there are the residences for employees. Housing across the GNRI also used the same designs of stations, as seen at station masters’ houses, residential terraces and larger, semi-detached houses. Join the Journey This blog, along with its Twitter and Instagram accounts, is a journey. And every journey needs a beginning. This is my ...