How Cavan’s bigshots waited on the Duke and Duchess of York
Jonathan Smyth's latest Times Past column looks at Cavan railway and the brief encounter by the gentry with a duke and duchess...
Who does not love a train journey? Well, since the tracks were mercilessly torn up long before I was born, it means having to venture beyond the county to experience train travel. But before issuing a sigh of resignation, hope is on the horizon with an interest in at least proposing the re-introduction of railway transport that may pass through Co Cavan. Let us hope these plans come to fruition. Everyone, from the ordinary man or woman to presidents to dukes and duchesses enjoy a trip by train.
Making tracks
Daily work on the railways was demanding. Employees who did the hard graft needed to be as tough as old boots when manually loading and unloading the goods wagons. Positions of onerous responsibility were the signalman and stationmaster and yet, in photographs, nearly all the staff look good-humoured and content. Promotions often meant employees had to move to other stations and still the consensus seems that the treatment of staff was generally fair and without discrimination.
One of the foremost authorities on the history of the Midland Great Western Railway (MGWR) is the historian W.E. Shepherd. His research on the MGWR’s Cavan branch for the October 1987 edition of the Irish Railway Record Society journal is a joy to read. From it we see that the earliest proposal for a railway to connect with Cavan appears in a survey drawn up by Alexander Nimmo in 1836. The company which requested Nimmo to draw up those plans was the Grand Central Irish Railway, and do not worry if you have not heard of them, because this company did not last and Nimmo’s drawings for Cavan got shelved.
Shepherd speaks about the plans the Grand Central had to join Celbridge, Co Kildare, with Longford, to run to Killucan, and on to Mullingar. Further ‘extensions’, he says, planned to link Athlone, Kilcock, Trim and Kells. If they had succeeded, it seems likely that the line would have added a ‘possible extension’ through Cavan to Lough Erne at Belturbet where Nimmo considered the possibility of adding a steamboat operation on the Erne that could feed passengers to a railway service at Belturbet.
But Shepherd points out that the Royal Commission refuted these lofty plans and dismissed the idea of having a railway west of Dublin. The west, they felt, was already well-served for its transport needs since it had ‘two great canals’, which they argued were ‘more than sufficient for the wants of the country in that direction’. Alas, it would take another twenty years for Cavan to taste the fruits of having its own railway.
T.S. Smyth, a Cavan local historian and author noted in his book on the civic history of Cavan that the railway station in Cavan Town opened in July 1856 under the auspices of the MGWR whose extension of the line from Mullingar went onwards to Longford and finished in Cavan. George Wilkinson designed the station house and buildings. He was the same architect who famously designed the Union Workhouse buildings. Two daily trains operated on the Cavan line.
Later, in 1859, another act allowed the Dundalk and Enniskillen Railway to build the Clones to Cavan extension railroad with the help of funding from the Ulster Railway, Dublin and Drogheda and the Dublin and Belfast Junction company. The Dundalk company became the Irish Northwestern Railway in 1862 and according to Shepherd, ‘from the opening of the northern connection, the MGWR station at Cavan was rebuilt’ and both companies shared the building. However, the INWR built a ‘separate goods store’ that lay ‘just north of the Killeshandra-Cavan road’. By 1876, the INWR had evolved through a variety of amalgamations into the Great Northern Railway of Ireland.
Duking about
What would a train be without people and where at times the journey of celebrities attracts the attention of the masses. In 1897 a brief encounter was offered to the hoi polloi and the local toffs when the Duke and Duchess of York momentarily passed through Cavan by train. From here, the carriage traversed the countryside to Clones and onwards till they reached Lord Abercorn’s oversized pad at Barronscourt, Co Tyrone.
Cavan made a big fuss over the royals that day. Mrs McCauseland came out to decorate the station with the help of a committee of ladies who covered the platform in flowers and greenery they had plucked earlier out of Lord Farnham’s garden. They covered the station lamp posts with flowers and laurels and on the MGWR side of the station, the flags and bunting billowed in the breeze.
Stationmaster Johnstone attempted to act fairly by handing out tickets to the public who wanted to see the royals roll into Cavan. But the police cocked-up the event and as a result the local gentry were pushed to the back of the crowd. The indignant ladies and gentlemen did eventually make it to the front. John Fay, JP; the Rev. Maine; and the Rev. Canon Crozier, accompanied by ‘several ladies and others’ including the Earl and Countess of Lanesborough, Colonel Saunderson MP, Lady Newtownbutler and Fane Vernon MP, stood around goo-goo eyed as they waited on the esteemed guests. The Anglo-Celt noted that the ‘rougher elements’ too had made their way to plum vantage points from which to see the Royal Yorks.
Eventually, the train from Mullingar rocked up pulling the royal carriage. The spectators only managed a ‘feeble’ cheer and Lord Farnham looked perplexed by the lack of enthusiasm and so began shouting all the louder to fire up the crowd. It worked for a few minutes. In the end, the Duke and Duchess spent less time in Cavan than they may have needed for a toilet break. For as soon as the carriage changed trains, the Yorks were on the way to Clones. All classes dispersed and headed home, having glanced at the exotic passengers. Most of them probably did not see what they came for and departed wondering to themselves what all the fuss had been about.
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