Irish railways in the 19th and 21st centuries

 

DUBLIN-bound commuters have to cope for the next three months, or so, with service disruption caused by the collapse of a railway viaduct at Malahide last week. This 19^th century edifice over the Broadmeadow Estuary will disrupt an estimated 50,000 commuter each day.

The era of mass transport in Ireland based on railways began in 1834, more than a decade prior to The Great Famine and reached its peak in the mid 1920’s. The system was reduced to a shadow of its original scale by the early 1960’s when the total population of the country sunk to its lowest level in history.

Ireland’s first railway service between Dublin and Dún Laoghaire in 1834, eight years after the inauguration of the first rail route in England between Liverpool and Manchester. The terminus was located at what is now Salthill station until 1837 due to local opposition to the development of what is now Dún Laoghaire station.

The population of what is now the Republic of Ireland, when the railways were inaugurated, was 6.5 million but this declined to 2.9 million in 1926 when the success of the railways system began to wane. Ireland’s population reached a low point in 1961 when it dropped to 2.8 million, before recovering over the past 15 years to its current level of 4.2 million.

When the railway enterprise commenced in 1834, 15% of the country’s population resided in the counties that now constitute the Dublin commuter belt – counties Dublin, Meath, Louth, Wicklow, Kildare and Carlow but, of course, there was no such thing as commuting then, nor had breakfast-roll-man existed! The Dublin commuter belt today contains 43% of the country’s population.  The building on the left is Dalkey Station, opened in the 1850’s.

It may surprise some that when the population was at its peak in 1841, the population of County Dublin was less than 374,000. County Dublin had a lower population then than:

• Cork (854,000)
• Tipperary (435,000)
• Galway (440,198)
• Mayo (388,887)

The decline and recovery in population numbers is summarised in this table:

 

Counties	1841	1926	1961	2009
Leinster
Carlow	86,228	34,476	33,342	50,349
Dublin	373,773	505,654	718,332	1,187,176
Kildare	114,488	58,028	64,420	186,335
Kilkenny	202,420	70,990	61,668	87,558
Laois	153,930	51,540	45,069	67,059
Longford	115,491	39,847	30,643	34,391
Louth	128,280	62,739	67,378	111,267
Meath	183,828	62,739	65,122	162,831
Offaly	146,857	52,592	51,533	70,868
Westmeath	141,300	56,818	52,861	79,346
Wexford	202,033	95,848	83,308	131,749
Wicklow	123,143	57,591	58,473	126,194
	1,971,771	1,148,862	1,332,149	2,295,123
Munster	1841	1926	1961	2009
Clare	286,394	95,064	73,702	110,950
Cork	854,118	305,747	330,443	481,295
Kerry	293,880	149,171	116,458	139,835
Limerick	330,029	140,343	133,339	184,055
Tipperary	435,553	141,015	123,822	149,224
Waterford	196,187	78,562	71,439	107,961
	2,396,161	909,902	849,203	1,173,320
Connaught	1841	1926	1961	2009
Galway	440,198	169,366	149,887	231,670
Leitrim	155,297	55,907	33,470	28,950
Mayo	388,887	172,690	123,330	123,839
Roscommon	253,591	83,556	59,217	58,768
Sligo	180,886	71,388	53,561	60,894
	1,418,859	552,907	419,465	504,121
Ulster	1841	1926	1961	2009
Cavan	243,158	82,452	56,594	64,003
Donegal	296,448	152,508	113,842	147,264
Monaghan	200,442	65,131	47,088	55,997
	740,048	300,091	217,524	267,264
OVERALL TOTAL	6,526,839	2,911,762	2,818,341	4,239,828

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The development of the leading railway companies reflected this:

• 1839 Ulster Railway – 970 KM
• 1844 Great Southern & Western Railway - 1,794 KM by 1901
• 1844 Dundalk - Castleblayney
• 1845 Midland Great Western Railway - 861 KM
• 1848 Midland Railway Northern Counties – 262 KM
• 1848 Belfast and County Down Railway
• 1840 Cork, Blackrock and Passage Railway – 26 KM
• 1851 Cork, Bandon and South Coast Railway - 150 KM
• 1856 Dublin & South Easter Railway serving Wicklow and Wexford - 256 KM
• 1859 Clones - Enniskillen
• 1863 County Donegal narrow gauge railway – 178 KM
• 1866 Cork and Macroom Direct Railway – 38 KM
• 1883 Cavan and Leitrim light rail – 78 KM
• 1886 Clonakilty Light Extension Railway – 14 KM
• 1887 Cork and Muskerry Light Railway – 29 KM
• 1887 West Clare Railway – 43KM
• 1888 Dublin and Blessington Steam Tramway – 25 KM
• 1888 Listowel and Ballybunion Railway – 16 KM
• 1900 Dublin and Lucan Electric Railway – 11 KM

There were other independent railway routes between:

• Schull and Skibbereen
• Sligo-Leitrim
• Timoleague and Courtmacsherry
• Tralee and Dingle
• Waterford and Tramore
• Castleblayney, Keady and Armagh
• Tralee and Fenit
• Ballnrobe and Claremorris
• Loughrea and Attymon

The system operated 5,500 kilometres of track in the 1920’s and apart from passenger traffic, they served a vital function in moving goods to ports for transhipment abroad. The building photographed on the left is Glenageary Station, where my own daily commute starts and ends – not always in sunshine!

The railway companies were merged into Great Southern Railways in 1925 and amalgamated into what was to become CIE in 1945.

The modern railway system in the Republic of Ireland consists of approximately one-third of the peak capacity in terms of track length. The mainline service links Dublin with Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Tralee, Limerick, Galway, Sligo and Belfast. The former Dublin – Navan route is being redeveloped as are the city services in Dublin, Cork and Galway.

This is taking place against a population profile that is radically different than that of pre-Famine Ireland, as illustrated in the following table, measuring persons per square kilometre:

 

Counties	Area (km2)	Density 1841	Density 1961	Density 2009
Leinster
Carlow	896	96	37	56
Dublin	921	406	780	1,289
Kildare	1,693	68	38	110
Kilkenny	2,061	98	30	42
Laois	1,719	90	26	39
Longford	1,091	106	28	32
Louth	820	156	82	136
Meath	2,342	78	28	70
Offaly	1,999	73	26	35
Westmeath	1,838	77	29	43
Wexford	2,352	86	35	56
Wicklow	2,024	61	29	62
	19,756	100	67	116
Munster Area / Population density	1841	1926	1961	2009
Clare	3,147	91	23	35
Cork	7,457	115	44	65
Kerry	4,746	62	25	29
Limerick	2,686	123	50	69
Tipperary	4,303	101	29	35
Waterford	1,837	107	39	59
	24,176	99	35	49
Connaught Area /population density	1841	1926	1961	2009
Galway	6,148	72	24	38
Leitrim	1,588	98	21	18
Mayo	5,585	70	22	22
Roscommon	2,547	100	23	23
Sligo	11,836	15	5	5
	27,704	51	15	18
Ulster Area / population density	1841	1926	1961	2009
Cavan	1,931	126	29	33
Donegal	4,841	61	24	30
Monaghan	1,294	155	36	43
	8,066	92	27	33
Overall Total	79,702	82	35	53

Some of the magic of the old railways is kept alive by the West Clare Railway who have run the old locomotive over a stretch of the old route. The Railway Preservation Society of Ireland, based at  Whitehead, Co Antrim organise steam train trips from time to time.