Once the Galway-Clifden railway route was agreed, pressure came from the chief secretary’s office for the Midland Great Western Railway to commence work immediately, and that ‘every able bodied man in Connemara’ was to be offered a job building the railway.
It was, however, an organisational nightmare. It was optimistically hoped the line would be completed in two years. Robert Worthington was appointed director of operations with the unenviable task of getting this vast 48 mile project, through bogs and rock, with seven stations, 27 bridges, 18 gate-keepers houses at level-crossings, off the ground, when all the land had not yet been secured, nor were all the engineering plans drawn up.
Nevertheless, hoping for the best, in January 1891 work began at three separate locations, Maam Cross, Recess and Ballinahinch employing 450 men. There were complaints from the coastal villages that none of their men could get work because the site was so far away; and Worthington expressed his frustration stating he could employ 3,000 men if only he had all the plans at hand. He was offering 12 shillings a week, working six days from 6am until 6 pm.
However he caused uproar and a strike, when he insisted that as work could only be done in day-light hours, he was withholding money until the men could work a full 12 hours in daylight. To end the strike cost the company an extra six pence a day.
Worthington was replaced by Charles Braddock who had to pay Worthington to get whatever plans there were from him. Again there was pressure from Dublin to take on more labourers, and although Braddock was anxious to employ as many as he could, for some reason he was equally reluctant to pay them. Again there were strikes until everyone was paid.
In addition Braddock ran up debts with a number of traders in Galway who put pressure on the MGWR for payment. It washed its hands of the debt, saying it was not its responsibility. Braddock resigned from the company, no doubt feeling hard done by. He employed a company of solicitors in Liverpool to take up his case.
Finally the contract was given to TH Faulkiner, who proved far more successful than his predecessors, and who settled down with more that one thousand men employed, all the plans on the table before him, and remained in control for the next five years while an extraordinary scene presented itself, as this vast enterprise made its way through the middle of Connemara in the closing decade of the 19th century.
Boisterous behaviour
In an effort to offer employment to those living some distance from the site a series of huts were built along the track. Each hut contained beds and a stove, but there were never enough beds for the number of men employed.
Still it was at these places that men gathered after a days work, and at Ballyinafad a busy provisions store opened which did a roaring trade as the men had money to spend. The store attracted local people who came long distances to shop, and women to fraternise with the men, who were strangers, and no doubt enjoyed a chat.
Before long a shebeen opened selling poitín, and, as in the American west, this led to instances of boisterous behaviour that neither the company nor the parish priest could stop. Despite fears for the morality of the people this state of affairs continued until the project was completed, five years later. Only then, reluctantly, the shop, shebeen and huts were dismantled, much to the disappointment of the locals.
Rich and famous
At last on New Year’s Day 1895 the railway was opened to traffic between Galway and Oughterard. The manager of the MGWR, Mr Joseph Tatlow, invited a number of dignitaries from Dublin, and they enjoyed the first train to leave Galway at 8am arriving at Oughterard promptly at 9.15.
The train did not delay. After taking on some passengers at Oughterard the train returned immediately to Galway, where we are told, ‘Mr Tallow liberally entertained several gentlemen in the Railway Hotel, after which he returned to Dublin’. The remainder of the route opened with very little ceremony on July 1 that same year.
Such a dull opening was an anticlimax after all the excitement, feelings of achievement, and hard work that brought this brilliantly engineered railway line, with its seven attractive red-brick stations, into existence. It gave local people a new sense of pride. It established a hotel at Recess. In the years that followed it opened a vibrant tourist industry, bringing the rich and famous to Connemara to fish and shoot, and enjoy its spectacular landscape.
Among them was the colourful and generous Maharaja Jam Sahib of Nawanagar, accompanied by his retinue of servants, and enormous piles of luggage, who alighted annually, with great ceremony, at his residence at Ballynahinch.
For local people it opened markets for their produce, and was an easy passage to Galway, and from there to Dublin and beyond. In its 40 year history it no doubt carried thousands on the emigration trail. It took young men to war, and brought home the wounded and the heroes. It brought the Black and Tans who were hell-bent on murder and mayhem on St Patrick’s Day 1921.
But it also put Clifden on the map. What was once a D’Arcy backwater, inaccessible in winter months, rapidly became a busy trading centre, and today is one of the highly rated must-see towns in the international guides. The compelling history of Marconi’s wizardry, Alcock and Brown’s epic flight, its coral beaches, the extraordinary Sky Road overlooking our off-shore islands, surrounded by aquamarine seas, makes Clifden the jewel in Galway’s crown.
Next week: The end of the line, and a ‘Thank You’ gift to Arthur J Balfour .
NOTES: Sources include Beyond the Twelve Pins - a History of Clifden and District 1860 - !923, by K Villiers-Tuthill, first published 1986, now in its fifth edition.
Listen to Tom Kenny and Ronnie O'Gorman elaborating on topics they have covered in this week's paper and much more in this week's Old Galway Diary Podcast.
