Ballyglunin, County Galway is a small village some six and a half miles south of Tuam. It would probably be unknown outside the immediate locale but for the fact that the little railway station here featured in John Ford’s 1952 film The Quiet Man. The station first opened with a single track in 1860 before being enlarged and improved in 1903 by the Great Southern and Western Railway which added a single storey residence, waiting room, office and lavatories, and a lamp room. As part of a rationalization of the national rail network, Ballyglunin station closed in 1967. There had been talk of it reopening as a stop on the proposed Western Railway Corridor. However, this project appears to have stalled and in the meantime the building has been falling into disrepair. Five years ago residents in the area established the Ballyglunin Community Development Charity, with the intention of restoring the old station in order to preserve this part of Ireland’s heritage. Last week, the same group launched a crowd funding scheme to raise sufficient funds for the building’s roof which is now in danger of collapse.

Ireland’s railway history dates back to 1834 when a line opened between Dublin and Kingstown (now Dun Laoghaire). The driving force behind this venture was William Dargan, who would ultimately be responsible for constructing more than 800 miles of railway around the country, not least the Great Southern and Western Railway which linked Dublin to Cork. Other lines gradually followed, as did the creation of companies intended to serve them. At its peak the railway network in Ireland ran to some 3,500 miles: today it is less than half that figure. As in Britain, during the 1950s increasing private motor car ownership and greater use of lorries as a means of transporting goods led to a drop of both passenger and freight business on the railways. The different companies had been merged in the mid-1920s to form Great Southern Railways and twenty years later this in turn amalgamated with the Dublin United Transport Company to create Córas Iompair Éireann. A report published in 1957 recommended there be greater co-ordination between road and rail services and that more than half the latter’s system, and three-quarters of its stations and halts be closed. Much of this came to pass over the course of the next decade.

Today’s photographs are not of Ballyglunin station but of another stop once serviced by the Great Southern & Western Railway, at Laffansbridge, County Tipperary. Like Ballyglunin, it dates back to the 1860s and remained in use for a century before being closed as part of the rationalization programme. More recently the adjacent site has been used as a quarry. Since then the group of buildings, incorporating ticket hall and reception rooms together with station master’s residence and separate goods shed, has fallen into its present pathetic condition: the structures are, of course, listed for preservation. Outside the world of railway enthusiasts (otherwise humorously known as ferroequinologists), there appears to be little interest in or concern for the safeguarding of this aspect of our collective heritage. The campaigners in Ballyglunin, County Galway deserve to be applauded for their efforts. As once was William Dargan, in their own field they may yet come to be seen as trailblazers.

For more information on the campaign to save Ballyglunin Railway Station and to offer your support, see: http://ballyglunin.com/