Wicklow's forgotten railway: a look at the Shillelagh branch line

The former Dublin & South Eastern Railway (DSER) main line to Wexford is regarded by many as one of the most scenic rail journeys anywhere in Ireland, passing along clifftops, through tunnels, alongside beaches, and through wooded valleys. Through one of these valleys, you will pass a golf club. If you look to the other side of the line, you will see an abandoned station building and the remains of a platform. It may seem tranquil and forgotten, but this station was once a significant junction from where a branch line of 16.5 miles sprang off through the countryside of south County Wicklow to the village of Shillelagh. It is now over 80 years since the last passenger train served this line, and in this article, we will take a look at the history of the Shillelagh branch line.

A period view of Shillelagh station.

The DSER’s only traditional branch line?

Compared to the other main Irish railway companies, the Dublin Wicklow & Wexford Railway (as the DSER was originally known) had little in the way of rural branch lines in the traditional sense. The Macmine Junction to Waterford line was in many ways a secondary main line, carrying lucrative mail trains and connecting a considerable city and port with Dublin and Wexford. It also had two routes from Bray to Dublin, being, of course, the famous Harcourt Street line and the coastal line via Dun Laoghaire to Westland Row, both of which carried extensive suburban traffic in addition to long-distance services and would hardly fit the description of a traditional branch line. As such, the Shillelagh branch stood out from the rest of the DSER system, even though such branches were reasonably common on other Irish railway systems such as the GSWR and MGWR. This leads us to the question, why was the Shillelagh branch line built when the DWWR never saw fit to construct lines to similar-sized villages in its catchment area?

The origins of the Shillelagh branch line

Like many developments in Irish history, the Shillelagh branch line’s genesis can be traced to land ownership. Much of the land which the Dublin, Wicklow, & Wexford Railway needed in south County Wicklow was under the ownership of Lord FitzWilliam. Fitzwilliam resided in his Coolattin Estate, Shillelagh, and wished for a rail connection. The DWWR agreed to the proposal, with Fitzwilliam donating land to the project.

The opening of the Shillelagh branch line

The line to Shillelagh was constructed over the course of 1864-1865, with the first train from Shillelagh operating in June 1865. Intermediate stations were initially opened at Aughrim and Tinahely, the former having a short spur to serve a local mill. Ballinglen gained a station in 1876, after a dispute between the Fitzwilliams and the DWWR, and was quite small compared to the other stations on the line. All the stations were relatively modest, single-platform affairs, with the same style of architecture that the DWWR used at stations in its main line during the period (although the junction at Woodenbridge sported a more unusual design). Goods and cattle facilities were present at most stations, with Shillelagh also boasting a small locomotive depot (including turntable) and a private waiting room for use by Lord Fitzwilliam. A turntable was located at Woodenbridge, where the branch had its own platform at angle to those on the Dublin to Wexford main line.

A view of the former Woodenbridge Junction, with the branch platform foremost.

A decent service

In its heyday, the Shillelagh line enjoyed decent custom across passenger, freight, and livestock businesses. At one point passengers had no less than six trains a day to choose from, some of which were ‘mixed’, i.e,. They included both passenger carriages and goods wagons. Most trains operated between Shillelagh and Woodenbridge, where passengers could interchange with the main line services between Dublin and Wexford. Direct goods trains to Dublin (Harcourt St) were operated too. Tours by rail are by no means a modern innovation, and the DWWR/DSER was quick to seize upon its advantage of linking Dublin with the ‘Garden of Ireland’ that is County Wicklow, with direct trains from Harcourt to Shillelagh operating for some summers. Fair days were also quite busy on the branch.

GSR days on the Shillelagh branch

In January 1925, the DSER was amalgamated into the Great Southern Railways, following on from an initial amalgamation of the GSWR, MGWR, and CB&SCR in November 1924 (the DSER had been initially quite resistant to the idea, having preferred an amalgamation with the GNR). The GSR era in general was one largely defined by cost savings and pruning, but the Shillelagh branch did manage to survive into the early 1940s, outliving the likes of the Clifden and Achill branches, which closed in the mid-1930s. By 1941, however, the coal shortage caused by World War II, or ‘The Emergency’ as it was known in neutral Ireland, started to have a severe effect on the GSR. Services on the branch were reduced from July that year. Fortunes did not improve for the branch, and the worsening fuel situation led to the GSR ceasing services on the branch (and several other lines) on 23rd April 1944. The passenger service was immediately replaced by a twice-weekly GSR omnibus service from Waterford. A locomotive was hastily dispatched to remove wagons from the line the following day.

A brief reprieve

Even as the ‘Emergency’ drew to a close, the cash-strapped GSR had little justification to reopen the branch in full. Its reopening was brought up in the Dáil in November 1944, with Minister Lemass citing that “the present supply position does not permit a reopening of the line”. He did make reference to the line being reopened, on a temporary basis, for the seasonal sugar beet traffic, although in our research we have not yet been able to find evidence that this actually happened.

As such, the Shillelagh line never saw a passenger train under the auspices of CIÉ, which came into being in early 1945, following the amalgamation of the GSR with the Dublin United Tramways Company. However, goods services did resume between Woodenbridge and Aughrim, to serve the flour mill, and to transport stone. The mill traffic ceased in 1947, with stone traffic continuing until 1952. The line was closed completely in 1953.

What sort of locomotives worked the Shillelagh branch line?

After the DSER became part of the Great Southern Railways in 1925, the Shillelagh branch (and the former DSER network in general) started to see locomotives from other railways, with former MGWR and GSWR engines finding their way onto the branch. As might be expected, the ubiquitous ex-GSWR J15/101 Class 0-6-0s (Ireland’s most numerous locomotive type) were not unknown, while a former-MGWR 2-4-0 found gainful employment on the branch for many of its final years. Given its fairly early closure, it is extremely unlikely that a diesel train ever traversed the branch, certainly not to Shillelagh. The CIÉ 1100 class diesel shunters were built in 1947, so while in theory it’s possible one could have visited Aughrim, there are no records indicating such a visit ever took place.

Postscript

While the last section of the branch closed in 1953, Woodenbridge station itself would remain open until March 1964, when it was part of a swathe of rural station closures along the south eastern main line. The passing loop remained in use for crossing trains until 1968. However, the former branch platform, sidings, and turntable would remain in situ into the 1970s, and did see use storing wagons, while also supplementing those at the Fertilizer factory at Shelton Abbey.

The water tower (left) and goods shed (right) at Shillelagh in 2016.

Many of the branch stations can still be seen today, with the one at Aughrim now a car dealership, while those at Tinahely and Shillelagh also remain as prominent fixtures of the local landscape. There have been at least two studies into reopening the line as a heritage railway, and while these have not proved feasible, a walkway over part of the route in the Tinahely area opened in 2005, and much of the rest of the line is to form a new greenway in the years to come. So while this long-forgotten branch line may not see a train again, it will still manage to play an important role in the Wicklow tourism scene in the future.