It's 176 years old. My wife's grandfather was a train driver here in the 1940's and 1950's. That generation lived in poverty, were given council housing, had hard lives, poor food, cheap fags and most didn't even live to 60. It's not hard to join the dots.
Some of the railway worker housing had no upstairs back windows and these are still there particularly in Greenore.
The reason was that the politicians didn't want the working class railway workers to look out and see the upper classes playing golf on grounds behind their houses. It was ever thus.
The current Dundalk Clarke station was built in June 1894 and designed by William Hamilton Mills, featuring his signature polychromatic brick style, predominantly in yellow, which is also found in stations like Malahide, Lisburn and Howth.
With the partition of Ireland in 1921, customs controls were introduced at Dundalk for cross-border routes operated by the GNR. A police station was created on the platform with suspect, good smugglers stopped for questioning and detained.
On 10 April 1966, as part of the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising the station was renamed "Dundalk Clarke Station" in honour of executed Rising leader Thomas Clarke.
CIÉ was reorganised in 1987 into separate operational entities, with Dundalk Clarke station coming under Iarnród Éireann and in January
1995 they announced the closure of their goods yard in Barrack Street and all goods traffic would be re-located to a new £2.5m depot on the old Irish North line alignment on the Ardee Road.[12] After this freight traffic, particularly for the Harp Brewery, was reduced significantly and in the mid-2000s, Dundalk became a passenger-only station. Which left the new freight depot abandoned and disused.
In 1996, during a renovation of the station, the track layout was simplified, leading to the removal of the sidings on the downside (line from Newry heading to Dublin), which were subsequently converted into a car park.
It'll be up to others to review the next 176 years of this living history. read more