Midland Great Western Railway Station Athlone

Early 20th Century view of the Midland Great Western Railway Station Athlone, architect J.S. Mulvany. This is an Edwardian view of the Midland Great Western Railway Station in Athlone, which was one of two railway stations in Athlone. Located on a site at Ranelagh on the west side of Athlone, the road which was constructed to connect this station with the town centre became the main Athlone-Galway road. The station opened in 1851 when the first train crossed the Shannon to the west of Ireland. It was designed by the architect J.S. Mulvany who also designed the Broadstone Station in Dublin. It consists of a long Italianate frontage of seventeen bays. This spacious building once housed both a busy railway station and a railway hotel. It closed in 1983 and now serves as engineering offices for Irish Rail.

Out of copyright

Captain Hermann Koehl and Baron Guenther Von Huenefeld

Photograph depicting Captain Hermann Koehl (co-pilot) and Baron Guenther Von Huenefeld (passenger), two men, who, along with Irishman James C. Fitzmaurice, made the first East-West flight across the Atlantic Ocean in April 1927.

Baldonnel Aerodrome before 1928

Aerial photograph of Baldonnel before 1928, the year the Bremen took off on its trans-atlantic flight.

By kind permission of the Photographic Section of the Irish Air Corps, Baldonnel

Kingstown (Dún Laoghaire) looking East

A view south over the center of Kingstown towards Sandycove, taken [?] from the town hall, before the building of the Pavilion. In view from left to right are: The East Pier, the 1823 George IV Monument, the National Yacht Club, the boathouse that sheltered the lifeboat, the sunken railway track across the foreshore, the Harbour Master's House (Moran Park house) and the Mariners Church on the extreme left.

Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland

Cork tram

A photograph from the Lawrence collection of a tram in Cork City.

Cork Harbour 1840

Cork Harbour has been a place of trade and travelling for centuries. It is one of the largest natural harbours in the world, with its unusual Great Island situated in the midst of the harbour. The harbour has seen many ships come and go including the Viking tall ships, the royal navies, cruise liners including the Titanic and the Lusitania, and many more. Cork harbour became widely known as a place of refuge and refuelling in the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars of the late eighteenth centuries, and early nineteenth centuries. It was also from Cork Harbour that emigrants left for a new life in America aboard the 'coffin ships' and convicts were transported to their life of exile in Australia, in the mid nineteenth century. Cork Harbour has been an important port of the Royal Navy before Ireland's independence, making Cork a great stronghold for the British Government in Ireland. Trade with other European cities was very popular in Cork Harbour especially trade with France, and butter became a huge export from Ireland across Europe from this town.

Canal and Flyboat at Longford

In 1755 two canal routes were proposed to join the Shannon with Dublin. While the Grand Canal was approved for construction, a more northerly route was dismissed. However, later in the 1780s a northerly route similar to that which was previously dismissed was now permitted for construction. The exact route of the canal was not planned, which caused some problems during its construction along with the hindrance of the Grand Canal Company's objection to the northern canal joining the River Shannon via Lough Ree. The canal was finally finished in 1817 reaching the river Shannon at Clondra, Co. Longford. Despite its delay, the quality of work done on the Royal Canal was very high. A total of forty-seven locks (including the sea lock), and four major aqueducts were built to carry the canal over the rivers Ryewater, Boyne and Inny. In total, eighty-six bridges were constructed. Traffic of goods on the Royal Canal was never as good as it was on the Grand Canal and the anticipated trade from Lough Allen did not materialise. However, the passenger service was increased as hotels were built along the route and the speed of the journeys were greatly reduced when lighter "fly" boats were introduced in 1833. This illustration shows a section of the Royal Canal, with a flyboat passing under a bridge. They were hauled along by horses that ran alongside the banks of the canal at a speed of about seven miles per hour.

Bernard Share, Author of the Transport Feature

Bernard Share contributed the material on inland transport to the new Encyclopaedia of Ireland and is consultant to the Heritage Office of Iarnród Éireann. He is a former editor of Cara, the in-flight magazine of Aer Lingus and was founder editor of Books Ireland. His books include Slanguage - A Dictionary of Slang & Colloquial English in Ireland, which is in its second edition; A History of Aer Lingus; Shannon Departures-A Study of Regional Initiatives; and, The Emergency-A Social History of Ireland in World War II. He has also written three novels and books for children. He has lectured in English in Australia and written and broadcast programmes for RTÉ and ABC, Sydney. He lives in Co. Kildare.