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About me

My name is Siobhan Osgood and I am researching the architecture of the former Great Northern Railway of Ireland for my PhD at Trinity College Dublin. My research is funded by the Irish Research Council. 

I gained a Master’s with Distinction in Art History: Art and Ireland at Trinity College Dublin in 2016. My master's thesis, ‘Railway Architecture: The Great Northern Railway at Dundalk’ was awarded the UK’s Association for Industrial Archaeology’s Dissertation Prize in 2017.

I was awarded the Desmond Guinness Scholarship in 2021 to facilitate research in Spain. 
In 2019 I was awarded the studentship prize for the Society of Industrial Archaeology (USA) conference in Chicago, and have presented my research at the 40th Theoretical Archaeology Group Conference in Chester, and the Irish History Students' Association Conference in Limerick. 
I have given guest lectures for Ulster Architectural Heritage, the Irish Railway Record Society, the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland, Engineers Ireland, and many other history societies. 

Publications include Architecture Ireland, the Association of Industrial Archaeology Journal, Irish Railway Record Society Journal, as well as newspaper articles. 

I am always interested in writing blogs and articles for publications and journals, as well as giving interviews. I love giving presentations, so feel free to contact me if you'd like me to give a lecture or talk. irishrailarch@gmail.com

Follow me on Twitter: @IrishRailArch
Follow me on Instagram: @IrishRailArch

Here are two heritage videos which I filmed with Irish Rail about Dundalk, and Malahide railway stations: 

Dundalk Railway Station

Malahide Railway Station






Popular posts from this blog

Paradise Lost: Howth Junction and Donaghmede

Alighting onto a post-apocalyptic concrete and steel abyss I surveyed the mesh of stairs, like an Escher lithograph, leading everywhere and nowhere simultaneously. “Where am I?” asked a bemused elderly lady I had stepped onto the platform with: “Howth Junction”. “Oh dear”. Relativity, M. C. Escher, Lithograph, 1953. Oh dear indeed. Where is the front of this ‘station’? I refuse to call it one: it is merely a set of stairs and a lift. Following signs to the exit I’m greeted with a dystopian Alice in Wonderland prospect of turning left into a car park and right along an overgrown, dirty footpath. I choose the latter; at least it might lead somewhere. The path to former station master's house, Howth Junction Dodging filth like the mad hatter, the elegant brick gables, stone lintels and terracotta chimney stacks of the former station master’s house can be spied amongst a wilderness of ivy, grass and razored-fencing. Forlornly neglected, the graceful merging of Classical ped...
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Valley of the Engineers: The Boyne Viaduct

Leaving my Roman sojourn into George Papworth’s Drogheda railway station , I head northward to the Boyne Viaduct. I pass the original Dublin and Drogheda stone engine shed and then – holy moley – the earth falls from under me and the Mesopotamian arch of Ctesiphon is recreated twelve-fold.  Boyne Viaduct (S. Osgood) Agog, I needed to watch my step and not the towering vertigo-inducing spans which rose piercingly from the River Boyne’s embankment. I stopped, composed and consoled myself that the steep steps down would be worth the ascension after my mooching about.  Boyne Viaduct (S. Osgood) Soaring across the Drogheda skyline the Boyne Viaduct was designed by Sir John Macneill (1793-1880) from 1844 and constructed between 1851 and 1855. Twelve round arches span the southern embankment, with three on the northern side, whilst tapering stone piers support the central section. Boyne Viaduct (S. Osgood) Constructed of hand-cut limestone and granite blocks, visual aesthetics were n...
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Spinning at Balbriggan

Recovered from my rather cranky experience at Skerries , my eyes are rewarded and my heart gladdened on the approach to Balbriggan. Arriving from the south and entering the station over John Macneill’s viaduct, a neat, contained lump of a station reassures me as I alight. Designed by George Papworth for the Dublin and Drogheda Railway (DDR) and built in 1853, Balbriggan railway station is a single-storey H-plan brown brick affair, with flanking Romanesque arches. The current stairway from hell take me across the tracks and provide a sweeping view of the beach and harbour, as well as a stairway to heaven: the former piers for the original footbridge. The beats to Talking Head’s Road to Nowhere start bubbling in the back of my mind. Beside the station building and its adjoining flightless steps stands the hammered stone and red brick base of the former, seemingly unadaptable, water tower. A more sympathetic contemporary alteration in the form of glass sliding doors announce...
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