Kieran’s Our City, Our Town Article,
Cork Independent, 3 July 2014
“Technical Memories (Part 81) –An Auld Acquaintance”
Whilst Cork Airport was being built to great acclaim in 1960-61 (see last week), other transport routes also came under scrutiny. The Minister for Transport and Power, Erskine Childers, officially opened Cork’s new bus station at Parnell Place on Wednesday 12 October 1961. The building was blessed by Canon Fehily, Parish Priest of SS Peter and Paul’s Church, in the presence of the then Lord Mayor Sean Barrett TD, the architect J R Boyd Barrett and CIE Chairman Dr C S Andrews. The main contractor was P J Hegarty & Sons from Leitrim Street and its Franki piles were installed by the Irish Piling and Construction Company Ltd (Dublin and Cork). The Franki piling system (also called pressure-injected footing) is a method used to drive expanded base cast-in-situ concrete (Franki) piles.
In the course of his address Minister Childers praised CIE’s expansion of its modern road services. He also referred to an end of an era – CIE’s decision to close the railways of West Cork. He said that criticisms of rail closures were often based on sentimentalism and that claims that closure would result in heavy expenditure being placed on the region’s roads were exaggerated. Referring to reports and accounts of CIE for 1959/ 60, he noted that the average number of passengers carried on the West Cork trains was 30 and the average goods train was 45 tons, which were not sustainable to keep the line and its branch lines open.
Well known names were associated with the West Cork lines in times past. There was the famous engineer, Charles Nixon, under whose direction Chetwynd viaduct and the two tunnels on the line (Kilpatrick, near Innishannon and Gogginshill near Ballinhassig) were built. No less eminent was his assistant Joseph Philip Ronayne, who after years of engineering in California, was to become MP for Cork, 1872-1876). He was an Irish language enthusiast years and his home at Rushbrooke was called Rinn Ronain and the first two engines on the Bandon line bore Gaelic titles, Sighe Gaoithe and Rith Tinneagh (Whirlwind and Burning Fire). Noted investors were Major North Ludlow Beamish, the Earl of Bandon, T McCarthy Downing, Sir John Arnott, Lord Carbery, J Warren Payne, Colonel Travers, all of whom in their various times furthered the development of the lines. There were also the great men who staffed the trains – drivers, firemen and guards. The Cork Examiner remarked on the last day of the Cork-Bantry train on Friday 31 March 1961; “Whether it was coaxing a steam engine up the long defile at Gleann, west of Dunmanway, on handling the excited holiday crowds at Baltimore and Courtmacsherry, they did their jobs efficiently and without fuss, in all weathers and under all conditions. Never was there a mere loyal band than the railwaymen of West Cork”.
The Cork Examiner on Saturday 1 April 1961 gave a descriptive sentimental account of the last journey of the West Cork line. A Garda squad car trailed the last train on the West Cork line from Cork to Bantry. They were there to quash any violent protest by local residents served by the line and who were against the closure. On board a squad of uniformed Gardaí also travelled, and at every station the blue uniform was present. However, the media did not record violent demonstrations but sentimental ones. Since the first day in 1849, when the Bandon Railway was opened, this was probably the most unique trip ever made on the 112 old line – and the trip was taken by a strong squad of press reporters and photographers and a gathering of representatives of the Irish Railway Record Society as well as many who were making the sentimental journey.
Hundreds of well-wishers crowded the platform at Albert Quay. Children sought the autographs of the driver Tralee-born Dan Murphy, and the excitement and confusion, which marked the occasion, delayed the start for almost ten minutes. It was just after nine minutes past 6pm when Guard Denis Hannigan waved the green flag and to the double-noted blast of the hooter Dan Murphy eased engine ‘2660-2641’ away from the platform. The Cork Examiner recorded the surrounding fuss; “ Farewell cheers rose, ‘bus rolls’ streamed from the hands of CIE men over the labouring train; the staccato snap of fog signals crushed beneath her wheels, and the mournful wall of locomotive whistles signalled the departure of the last train to West Cork”.
As the train sped through the suburbs the various bridges over-looking the line were thronged. Out then into the country, over the Black Ash bridge, onto the Chetwynd Viaduct, where many a bowl player had been challenged to loft the bridge. Past the picturesque Bandon River through Clonakilty, Desert, Dunmanway, Drimoleague, Aghaville, Durrus Road and journeying onto Bantry. The schedule for the journey was one of continued interruptions by well-wishing local people. Every station was filled to capacity by sightseers, and travellers on this historic occasion and the progress of the train was delayed. On entering Bantry a multitude of fog signals and cheers were heard and as the train pulled out on her solitary lonely trip back to Cork, the hundreds of spectators sang “Should Auld Acquaintance be Forgot”.
To be continued…
Caption:
749a. Albert Quay Terminus, Cork City, 1930s, part of West Cork Railway Line (picture: Cork City Library)