Skip to main content

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...
Read more

Sweet Dreams at Navan

Upon my first visit to Navan in 2018 in search of the railway station I was astounded that such a large town could have had its train service removed, when much smaller villages along the Sligo and Maynooth routes were still connected to the capital. Little did I know that two years later I would marry a Navan-native, settle in the area and pass the station every day, miffed and mournful at its wasted potential. The line opened with ambition 172 years ago in 1850, built by the Dublin and Drogheda Railway as a branch line from Drogheda to Oldcastle. Boyne Valley Railtour at Navan, 1977, Railway Preservation Society of Ireland My station safari was rewarded by passing over the extant railway tracks at the station’s level crossing – the line is still in operation for Tara Mines – and the heralding of the former station master’s house. A typical two-storey GNR example, its red brick man has been pebbled-dashed, disguising the polychromatic contrast intended for the, still exposed, yellow b...
Read more

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...
Read more