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Up for the Chop at Gormanston

Delayed by Covid-19 lockdowns, I finally made a site visit to Gormanston one cloudy afternoon last year when freedom was temporarily restored. What greeted me was enough to elicit social distancing long before any state intervention. 

For alone now stands the final cube of the original GNR wooden station which once served Gormanston. Dilapidated, peeling, unsure of its purpose, the remnants seemed to encapsulate the mood of a nation coping with a pandemic. 

Gormanston was originally opened as part of the Dublin and Drogheda Railway line in 1845, and had a new station, waiting shelter, station master’s house and signal cabin constructed by the GNR. The design for the wooden station, as it used to stand, was similar to the next stop on our journey, Laytown, which was built in 1899, and so Gormanston was probably built around the same time. 

Historic pictures, and those from as recent as 2003, show an intact station, cottagesque in design, but self-contained, functional and fit for purpose. 

Source: Ciarán Cooney Eiretrains

It appears that Irish Rail took some kind of executive decision to chop the station building in half in order to insert an electric generator. Considering the surrounding space it seems like a deliberate act of gluttony to eat half of the station building, leaving a meaningless crumb for everyone else. 

Standing opposite in gallant relief but witness to the butcher’s knife is the shell of the GNR waiting shelter. A rare example, the once fully glazed windows and sliding entrance doorway now seem aghast at the horror which befell its master. 

At least the station master’s house remains intact (now a private residence), with its archetypal peaked entrance porch (it has been extended at a later date) which would have matched that of the station. Although one does suspect the current window frames have replaced the original semi-arch types as seen at other houses of this type along the GNR line.

Another piece of the cake which has been gobbled by the hands of ‘progress’ is the signal cabin. Photos show that it was of the standard GNR design, as can be seen in the design for Armagh. 

Source: Albert Bridge

The circular carved bargeboards, gabled points and moulded daggers and brackets show just how much care was taken in the design of these cabins. Gormanston's cabin is currently awaiting restoration at the Cavan and Leitrim heritage railway. 

Source: Irish Railway Record Society Archives

But lo, what’s this? A hint of sympathetic conversion? My eyes deceive me! The original red-brick goods shed for the Dublin and Drogheda Railway has undergone a face-lift which stands in complete contrast to its surrounding buildings and seems rather overdressed for the party. 

The defining features which separate it from the later GNR buildings are its angular stepped brickwork and diamond-ocular window; another examples stands at Skerries. It is interesting that the oldest building at Gormanston is also the best-maintained. 

With a sigh and a scowl as I pass by the electric station-gobbler, I drive south to the mouth of the Delvin River, where the borders of Meath and Dublin meet. 

The Gormanston viaduct chunkily passes overhead, its six rather well-endowed piers stand firm in the shifting sands beneath. First built in 1844 for the Dublin and Drogheda Railway it was designed by the company’s chief engineer, Sir John Macneill. It was later reconstructed by the GNR’s chief engineer, William Hemingway Mills, the man responsible for the style of architecture formerly evident at the neighbouring station. It was William’s son, George Mills, who designed the new viaduct, and it was the Darlington-based contractors Cleveland Bridge and Engineering Co. who constructed it. 

One particularly nice feature are the former rail tracks which now serve as bollards for parked cars. 

And so I stand on Gormanston Bay pondering the boardroom decisions which lead to such greedy annihilations where such carefully designed, unobtrusive and easily-adaptable buildings are chopped in half, others gobbled whole by the progress monster. 

Speaking of which, it must be time for lunch. 


Sources: 

Buildings of Ireland

Eiretrains

Geograph.ie 

Geohive.ie

Irish Railway Record Society 


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