Qualla: Buttevant Rail Disaster

Buttevant Rail Disaster: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

It was August Bank Holiday Friday, and 230 people had chosen the train. The 10:00 a.m. express from Dublin Heuston to Cork Kent was running on time. At twelve forty-five it came into Buttevant station, on the main line 137 miles from Dublin, doing the kind of speed an express does between stops. A manual set of facing points had been left aligned for a siding. The locomotive itself stayed upright, but the carriages behind it - the generator van and the two coaches and the dining car immediately following - had nowhere to go. They jack-knifed across four parallel tracks. Two coaches and the dining car were demolished. Eighteen people died. More than seventy were injured. It became one of the worst rail disasters in Irish history, and it became something else too: the moment that ended wooden-framed passenger carriages on Irish railways.

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Buttevant Rail Disaster: The Eighteen

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The eighteen who died came from many places. Eileen Redmond, 66, was from Leinster Terrace in Wexford. Patrick Larkin, 77, lived in Templemore in County Tipperary. Two nuns from the Convent of Jesus and Mary at Gortnor Abbey in Crossmolina, County Mayo - Sister De Lourdes O'Brien...

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Buttevant Rail Disaster: The Cause

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

The cause was simple and the consequences ran deep. A set of manual facing points had been set for a siding rather than the through line, on a section of main line being used during track maintenance. The express entered Buttevant station at speed, the points sent it across a 1:8...

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Buttevant Rail Disaster: What Wooden Coaches Did

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

It turned out that 70 percent of all Irish rail deaths over a 28-year period had occurred in these wooden-bodied carriages. The math was visible at Buttevant: the modern steel-framed coaches in the train remained largely intact while the older timber bodies were destroyed. Public...

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Buttevant Rail Disaster: The Memorial

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

On 8 August 2005, on the 25th anniversary, the survivors and the families of those who died gathered at Buttevant station. A bronze sculpture in the shape of two crossing train tracks was unveiled, and a plaque with the eighteen names was set beside it. Some had travelled from Vi...

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