Qualla: Galway to Clifden Railway

Galway to Clifden Railway: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Ten pounds. That was the price the Great Southern Railways accepted from a German scrap metal company in the mid-1930s for the steel bridge that had once carried trains across the River Corrib in the city of Galway. The bridge was the largest structure on the Galway-to-Clifden Railway, a 48.5-mile line through some of Ireland's most spectacular landscape. It had taken five years to build, cost £410,000 in 1890s money (£264,000 of which came from the government as a free gift under the Light Railways Act), employed 1,500 workers at its peak, and carried Edwardian aristocrats in dining cars to their fishing lodges and summer houses in Connemara. By 1935 it was unprofitable. By the time the metal went to Germany, the rails were gone, and the road that became the N59 was being paved over the route the trains had taken.

Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Galway to Clifden Railway: A Matter of National Importance

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hugo d’Alesi, Public domain. Clifden in the 1880s was a town reached mostly by sea. Stagecoaches and wagons crawled the rough roads from Galway, and in bad winters they could not get through at all. The crop failures of that decade pushed Connemara's poor toward famine, and calls grew for a railway as a stru...

Image: Hugo d’Alesi | Public domain

Galway to Clifden Railway: Construction in Hunger

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Martin P. Whyte, CC BY-SA 4.0. Construction began in the winter of 1890-91, intended as an emergency works programme. Every job seeker was to be taken on. The construction company, run by Charles Braddock, did indeed accept all who applied. Then it failed to pay them. Strikes broke out in Clifden in March 1891...

Image: Martin P. Whyte | CC BY-SA 4.0

Galway to Clifden Railway: Dining Cars to Clifden

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. El Comandante assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. The line opened in two phases. The first section from Galway to Oughterard opened on 1 January 1895, attended by Joseph Tatlow, General Manager of the MGWR, and almost no one else; New Year's Day was reserved for church. On 1 July 1895 the full line to Clifden went into service. ...

Image: No machine-readable author provided. El Comandante assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain

Galway to Clifden Railway: The End and the Trace

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The original uploader was Miguev at English Wikipedia., CC BY 3.0. The First World War, the Irish War of Independence, and the Civil War that followed each cut into tourism. During the Civil War the line was damaged badly enough to require a seven-month shutdown. When peace came, road competition was already taking the rest of the traffic. In 19...

Image: The original uploader was Miguev at English Wikipedia. | CC BY 3.0