The image is that of a cancelled return rail excursion ticket from Edenderry to Dublin on the 17th of March 1963. The event was the Railway Cup inter Provincial Finals in Hurling and Football. Four Offaly Players were selected – Greg Hughes, Paddy McCormack, Charlie Wrenn and Sean Brereton. It was the last passenger or goods train to use the Edenderry – Enfield Branch or Slip Line which started almost 86 years earlier. Would you like to contribute a story. Email us info@offalyhistory.com first.
Among the first railways proposed for connecting Dublin with the west coast was The Grand Atlantic Railway & Steam Packet Company, whose prospectus was published in 1835. This company was to construct a line from Dublin via Mullingar, Foxford, Ballina to Blacksod Bay where a Steamer Service would then connect to New York and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Government then appointed the Royal Commission to consider the country’s future transport needs and which halted railway speculation for the moment.
The Midland Great Western Railway was formed to construct a line to the west. Sir John MacNeill produced a preliminary survey for a line to Athlone. This line would diverge from the GS&WR near Sallins, County Kildare to Edenderry and then to Mullingar.
The alternative proposal of purchasing the Royal Canal finally prevailed.
The Railway Times from May 1845 carried a Notice to Contractors seeking Tenders for the construction of a 26 ½ mile stretch of line from Broadstone to Enfield. This line officially opened on the 28th of June 1847.
The MGWR over the next two decades continued the line westward. A branch or slip line to Edenderry had been proposed as early as November 1864 when an influential meeting was held at Edenderry courthouse. Nothing came of this nor of another proposal to construct a line from Maynooth to Edenderry in 1873. The MGWR did however agree to guarantee finance towards a survey and the cost of putting a Railway Act through parliament.
The salvation for the construction of a link line from Enfield to Edenderry came in the form of Miss Catherine Downing-Nesbitt of Leixlip House who inherited her brother William’s Toberdaly Estate in 1857. She and her brother-in-law Count Susi (de Lusi) owned 1,529 acres in County Galway, 3,641 acres in County Roscommon, 620 acres in County Limerick and other estates in Counties Londonderry, Offaly, Antrim and Kildare in the 1870s. Miss Nesbitt bred pedigree cattle on her Toberdaly Estate and she was a regular prize winner at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) to where her cattle entries were transported by canal boats on the nearby Grand Canal. Ms. Nesbitt offered to contribute the sum of £10,000.00 towards the proposed Edenderry line and did not seek any security in return. Early in March, 1875, Tenders were sought for the construction of a line from a point between Enfield and Moyvalley to Edenderry (1.2 miles west of Enfield). The £20,500.00 Tender of Edwards & Bagnell was accepted.
Work commenced within six months when much of the land had been purchased. Bagnell also tendered for the Station Works at Edenderry and at Carbury. Miss Nesbitt was asked, in recognition of her generosity, if the point of the junction might be named after her, and she readily agreed.
The line was completed in early 1877 and was opened for traffic on Tuesday the 10th of April the first train leaving Edenderry at 7.50 a.m.
Passenger traffic on the line ceased on the 1st of June 1931 and goods traffic ceased on the 1st of September 1932. In the years up to its closure in 1963 the line saw very infrequent service, and mostly carried livestock, sugar beet, and turf, as well as private excursions.
Most of the Station Yard and structures were intact until the late 1980’s with dual engine sheds, warehouse, loading gantries, a water tank complete with a gantry hose, platforms and a Station Master’s Office. There was also a turntable basin located just behind the engine sheds, formed into the side of the hill with a thirty feet circular retaining wall on two sides, allowing engines to run in to be turned and run out.
With no through running for scheduled passenger traffic, it was considered a branch or slip line. For the journey to Dublin, passengers from Edenderry would have to wait in the detached coach for a schedule Up bound train coming through the station, continuing on to Dublin, or to change platforms for West bound trains.
The 1924 Railways Act saw the MGWR absorbed into the Great Southern Railways Company (GSR).
In 1930 GSR reconfigured the Nesbitt Junction and uplaid it at Enfield Station where the Signal Cabin there now controlled the Junction. The photo image is of William Coughlan who was Station Master in Edenderry from 1920 to 1932 when he retired when the line was closed to goods traffic in September of that year. He was known affectionately as “Pa” and was from Kilmaleady between Clara and Moate in Co. Offaly. He and five of his brothers joined the MGWR service. “Pa” joining in 1882. The 1911 Census shows him as Station Master in Maynooth. It was MGWR service also brought him to Moycullen, Nobber, Ballinahinch, Maam Cross, Drumrea, Moate and Achill Sound.
Tess O’Kennedy’s interview featured in Joe O’Reilly’s Book “From Clonsast to Ballyburley” (1984)…. “It was a very busy place when I was young with trains coming in and going out every day. They only went to Enfield and met the train coming from Dublin. The passengers were taken out to Enfield and passengers coming from Dublin, if they were going to Edenderry, would have to change at Enfield…….The reason it all got slack, I think, was buses coming on the road and it was handier for people to get the bus at the door rather than coming to the Railway Station. Eventually, sadly, the passenger service closed……..We had goods trains which would bring cattle. There were great cattlemen around like the Smyths, the Lacys, the Fays, the Gills, the O’Briens, and of course the Moores from here and the Moores from Garr. I can remember them coming with their cattle. I remember them being very helpful when they would come around the place. My father would organise them, getting the Porters to give them a hand to get the cattle into the wagon.…… I think it was around the early 1930s that the line wasn’t doing so well and it wasn’t paying to keep it open. There were delegations to Dublin to prevent its closure. The Town Commissioners Andy Byrne, John F. Gill and Mr. Walsh went up to Dublin to see if they could prevent it. ….. the fare at that time was only 4s. 11d to Dublin from Edenderry but even through it was so cheap and in spite of delegations it was closed to passengers around 1932. It was then that my father retired as Station Master. Wallaces took over then. They had road freight and cattle and all that and my father was reinstated as agent for them. He worked at this for about 12 years just to keep himself busy. His life was the railway and he loved being kept busy on it.”
The Edenderry line was finally closed in 1963. It had been used only for ‘heavy freight’ ..and….excursions. after the early 1930s and up to 1963 final closure.
Our thanks to Declan O’Connor for this article
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