Eighty years ago yesterday, on January 30th, 1925, a memorable train crash occurred on one of Ireland's most spectacular railway lines, writes John Geraghty
The Londonderry & Lough Swilly Railways (L&LSR) train from Letterkenny to Burtonport was blown off the high viaduct across the Owencarrow river about three miles from Creeslough.
The train had left Letterkenny about 7 p.m. - in the dark of a winter's night - with 36 passengers aboard. The driver was Robert McGuinness, the fireman John Hannigan, and the train's guard was Neily Boyle. A fierce gale was blowing as the train approached the viaduct. The driver slowed to 10 m.p.h., but the gale was so strong that it blew the passenger carriage nearest the engine from the rails, ripping off the roof, and flinging four passengers to their deaths 40 feet below. The dead were Philip and Sarah Boyle from Arranmore Inland, off the Donegal coast, Una Mulligan from Falcarragh, and Neil Duggan, whose home in the townland of Meenbunowen was literally a stone's throw from the viaduct.
Fireman John Hannigan stumbled and ran through the dark the three miles to Creeslough to raise the alarm. The local doctor, Dr Charley Coll, drove to the scene to tend the injured, six of whom were taken to Letterkenny Hospital. At the coroner's inquest, the bravery of two local men, James McFadden of Kilfad and Pat McFadden of Terlin was noted: they had rescued two women from a carriage hanging over the edge of the viaduct.
The train had been crossing the northern end of the Gweebarra Fault, a geological "gap" which, like the Great Glen of the Scottish Highlands, acts almost as a wind tunnel in stormy weather - the area was later found to have some of the highest recorded wind speeds in Ireland.
How did a railway come to be running in this part of the world? The last years of the 19th century had seen the British government offering funding for the building of railways in the Congested Districts - the areas in the west where the land was deemed too poor to support the population. The Congested Districts Act of 1891 had tried to improve the economic conditions. Fishing was encouraged - it gave employment, provided freight on the railway, and also gave urban dwellers in both Derry and Belfast cheap and nourishing food.
The rail link from Derry to Burtonport had been opened in 1903, at a cost of some £300,000 almost all of it in government subsidies. (It is hard to make comparisons with today's prices, but the equivalent is probably around €50 million.) Burtonport, an important fishing town on the west coast of Donegal, was in the heart of Donegal's Congested Districts, and building a railway was central to the area's development.
But from the beginning, the L&LSR was stuck for cash. Extensions ended up relying on government grants, and this led to the Board of Works economising on routes, services and equipment. So the railway was built by what passed for the shortest route from Letterkenny to Burtonport. Avoiding the coastal areas, the narrow-gauge line ran west from Letterkenny, then north towards Creeslough, from where it again headed west towards Errigal and the Derryveagh mountains, wending its way across moorland and bogs, until eventually it swung down to Gweedore and Burtonport. The journey took about four hours - a long haul, but still a lot quicker than horse and cart. The extension line to Burtonport, despite crossing about 50 miles of the Donegal uplands, kept away from most of the coastal settlements - often these were no nearer than three or four miles from the railway stations. At almost 75 miles (about 115 kilometres) from Letterkenny to Burtonport, the L&LSR's Burtonport extension was truly "around the world for sport".
Despite the 1925 derailment, the long journey time, and the enforced economies of the Board of Works, the train service somehow continued until the beginning of the second World War, when coal shortages reduced its regularity. The last passenger train from Letterkenny to Burtonport ran in June 1941.
However, despite some of the tracks being lifted around Burtonport, some trains continued to operate on the Gweedore section of the line during the war, as this area was also a supplier of turf for Derry city. But in 1947 the line closed entirely.
Today little remains of the railway line - some embankments here and there, the pillars of viaducts and, it is claimed, some of the "permanent way" itself, on which the builders in some places had used sheep hides to form a rudimentary damp-proof course to prevent the rails from rusting.
And the Owencarrow viaduct? Like the rest of the line, little of it now exists, apart from the pillars standing bleakly across the broad expanse of the river valley which 80 years ago saw horrific scenes in the midst of a raging winter storm.