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Fifteen years before the Galway-Clifden railway started, the first light-rail track laid in Galway was the tram service to Salthill. For more than 39 years a series of horse-drawn trams ran from the depot in Forster Street, along the east and south sides of Eyre Square, heading west through Shop Street and Dominick Street, over the bridge, and along the Salthill road. Then it was in the countryside with open fields and thatched cottages. The line came to an end at the Eglinton Hotel (now a hostel), where the horse was switched to the other end of the tram for the return journey. The Eglinton became Europe’s most westerly tram terminus.

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.

The first ever in-depth account of the gloriously scenic Galway-Clifden Railway which ran through the heart of Connemara from 1895 to 1935 will be launched this weekend in Maam Cross Railway Station.