Volunteers at Maam Cross Railway Station are determined to build anew after a devastating weekend fire tore through one of the site’s most important structures, leaving behind damage but not despair. The station, now a much-loved tourist attraction, suffered a serious setback on Saturday, December 13, when a blaze broke out in the signal cabin at approximately 12.30pm. While no one was injured, the cabin itself was almost completely destroyed.
For the volunteers who have poured years of dedication into restoring Maam Cross, the loss is deeply felt. The signal cabin was not just a building, but a symbol of the station’s living history. Project director Jim Deegan described the incident as a terrible accident, explaining that a stove inside the cabin, long used to keep the space warm, overheated when caught by the wind and ignited the walls.
Despite the shock, the spirit that brought Maam Cross back from dereliction has not been extinguished. “We’ll try and rise out of the ashes and rebuild it,” Jim said, capturing the resolve shared by the entire team. Already, plans are underway to launch an appeal to fund the cabin’s restoration, turning loss into another chapter of renewal.
The fire forced the cancellation of the much-anticipated Santa train experience, a disappointment for families and volunteers alike. Yet even this setback has strengthened their resolve to continue. The station, located just off the R336 near Maam Cross service station, sits on an 8.5-acre site steeped in railway history. Between 1895 and 1935, trains regularly stopped here on the line connecting Galway city to Clifden, carrying passengers through nearly 80 kilometres of Connemara’s striking landscape.
It took eight years for Jim and his fellow volunteers to transform the abandoned station into an all-weather, family-friendly destination. Central to that vision was the signal cabin, painstakingly rebuilt on its original footings as an exact replica of the structure that once stood there. Damaged during the Civil War, rebuilt once before, and now lost again, the cabin’s story mirrors Ireland’s own cycle of destruction and renewal.
What the volunteers have created at Maam Cross is more than a museum. It is a living performance of heritage, where old trains, mechanical signals and dedicated volunteers recreate the vanished world of the Irish country railway. And just as they have done before, they are ready to rebuild — not simply restoring what was lost, but reaffirming their belief that history, once damaged, can still be lovingly brought back to life.
