Like Paddington Bear, Past Tracks came to life on a railway platform. In fact, so did Algernon Worthing in Oscar Wilde’s masterpiece, ‘The Importance of Being Ernest.’ I was standing on the platform at Hazelhatch, near Celbridge, County Kildare, awaiting the Dublin train, with drizzle going down my neck, wishing there was a placard somewhere that might tell me the local history. Of the great battles that raged when Brian Boru’s forces swept through these parts a thousand years earlier. Of the Italian fresco painter who caught Lady Cloncurry misbehaving with a suitor at nearby Lyons. Of the roadside beer-seller from nearby whose grandson would found the Guinness brewery …
History should never just be boring old dates dates dates. It should be full of the vibrancy and personality and passion of the people who have gone before. In Ireland, we are surrounded by the past wherever we stand. Every field, hill, stream, rock, street or railway platform has a story to tell.
As we glide through the countryside in trains, buses and motor cars, we are often utterly unaware of the history that whizzes by. We vaguely take in hilltop summits crowned with ancient forts, ruined castles, hollow churches and crumbling farmsteads. We daydream past the bramble-strewn shells of abandoned canals and copper mines, the ghostly outlines of primeval forests, the overgrown graveyards where vanished bloodlines lie, the stumps of pillars that once carried railway lines, but the history itself often eludes us.
In 2019, I teamed up with Irish Rail (Iarnród Éireann) and the illustrator Derry Dillon, ‘Past Tracks’ to put such history back in focus by installing a series of history panels at railway stations across Ireland. The first ten panels were sponsored by Flahavan’s of Kilmacthomas, County Waterford, a company with a rich history itself. In 2022, we unveiled a further forty panels, spread along all of the major railway lines in the state, including the DART in Dublin.
To date, we have produced 50 panels with 300 short stories about lesser-known people, places and events connected with Ireland’s rich past. Each tale is presented in a manner that seeks to intrigue, amuse and maybe even inspire commuters, passengers and visitors alike as they journey through the four provinces.
Hats off to Jack O’Driscoll, Irish-language editor, for his expert translations and grammatical observations, and to Maria O’Brien for her fine reading of the panels also. The fifty stations covered to date are as follows:
- Carlow – Carlow Town
- Clare – Ennis
- Cork – Cobh
- Cork – Mallow
- Dublin – Booterstown
- Dublin – Connolly
- Dublin – Clondalkin & Fonthill
- Dublin – Clonsilla
- Dublin – Dalkey
- Dublin – Docklands
- Dublin – Dun Laoghaire
- Dublin – Grand Canal Dock
- Dublin – Greystones
- Dublin – Hazelhatch and Celbridge
- Dublin – Howth
- Dublin – Heusten
- Dublin – Lansdowne Road
- Dublin – Malahide
- Dublin – Pearse
- Dublin – Sandycove and Glasthule
- Dublin – Skerries
- Galway – Athenry
- Galway – Ballinasloe
- Galway – Galway City (Ceannt)
- Kerry – Killarney
- Kildare – Athy
- Kildare – Hazelhatch & Celbridge
- Kildare – Maynooth
- Kildare – Monasterevin
- Kildare – Naas & Sallins
- Kildare – Newbridge
- Kilkenny – Kilkenny City (MacDonagh)
- Laois – Portarlington
- Laois – Portlaoise
- Leitrim – Dromod
- Louth – Drogheda (MacBride)
- Louth – Dundalk
- Longford – Edgeworthstown
- Mayo – Ballina
- Mayo – Castlebar
- Mayo – Westport
- Offaly – Tullamore
- Roscommon – Boyle
- Sligo – Sligo Town
- Tipperary – Thurles
- Waterford – Waterford City
- Wexford – Wexford Town (O Hanrahan)
- Wicklow – Arklow
- Westmeath – Athlone
- Westmeath – Mullingar