Search Results for 'Arthur J Balfour'

It is probable that if the coastal route had been chosen for the Clifden railway, rather than the Oughterard/ Maam Cross way, the line would still be viable today. The idea of the so-called ‘Balfour lines’, proposed by an enlightened chief secretary for Ireland, Arthur J Balfour, and given the go-ahead in the 1889 Light Railways (Ireland) Act, was to give far-flung towns and communities access to bigger markets, and to grasp the benefits of employment and opportunities.

Whether it was to defuse the call for Home Rule, or whether Chief Secretary Arthur J Balfour was genuinely moved at the shameful poverty that existed among the western counties of Ireland, his ‘walkabout’ among the people was generally very well received.

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.

In 1887 Arthur J Balfour, a quintessential English unionist, was appointed chief secretary of Ireland by his uncle Lord Salisbury, the Conservative prime minister. No one expected much from this man whose appointment appeared so nepotistic as to suggest he was an incompetent. He was far from that.