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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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