Goes to Ireland - Enfield to Drogheda Great British Railway Journeys

In 1840, one man transformed travel in Britain and Ireland.

His name was George Bradshaw

and his railway guides inspired the Victorians to take to the tracks.

Stop by stop, he told them where to travel,

what to see and where to stay.

Now, 170 years later, I'm making a series of journeys

across the length and breadth of these islands

to see what of Bradshaw's world remains.

For the first time on my railway adventures, I've crossed the Irish Sea,

using my 19th century Bradshaw's Descriptive Railway Handbook of Great Britain and Ireland.

The book gives a fascinating glimpse of an Ireland that, at the time of writing,

was one Ireland under the reign of Queen Victoria.

But, of most interest to me,

it was also experiencing a railway revolution.

'On this stretch I'll be discovering an industrial railway built on inhospitable bogs.'

-What scale of rail operation do you have?

-In total, 600km of permanent rail line.

Admiring a marvel of Victorian railway engineering.

It's certainly worth seeing the viaduct from here.

It soars above the town and it's this wonderful combination of iron and stone.

And unearthing extraordinary underground secrets.

-So now we're at the sharp end?

-Yes. This is where it all happens.

Just mind your footing. Follow me is probably the best thing.

Having visited 19th century Ireland's first railway lines in Dublin,

I'm now following their expansion out from the capital.

My route takes me North, where, having crossed the border,

I'll take in the dramatic scenery of the North East coast,

finishing up in Derry, Londonderry.

This stretch starts in the rural Midlands, west of Dublin,

then rejoins the east coast mainline,

taking in the fishing town of Balbriggan, en route to Drogheda.

I'm making a slight detour inland from my coastal route, northwards through the Republic of Ireland,

because I'm intrigued by this entry in Bradshaw's.

"Nearly one-fifth part of this county is occupied by bog,

"including a considerable portion of the great chain of morasses, termed the Bog of Allen."

And now Bradshaw suddenly breaks into verse.

"Great Bog of Allen swallow down that odious heap called Philipstown.

"And if thy maw can swallow more, pray take and welcome Tullamore.

"These two unhappy towns are planted in the very heart

"of this most desolate bog", says Bradshaw's.

With a build-up like that, who can resist visiting?

The rhyme quoted in my guidebook is typical of 19th century attitudes to Ireland's extensive bogs.

They were seen as barren lands, a cause of poverty and misery,

ripe for reform.

To see this remarkable landscape for myself,

I'm leaving the train on the edge of the ancient Bog of Allen.

So, my trip to the desolate bog

begins at the somewhat isolated station of Enfield.

These days, much of the bogland

would be unrecognisable to Victorian eyes.

Vast swathes of the landscape have been transformed by the peat industry,

which harvests around four million tonnes a year.

I'm guided by peat worker Justin McCarthy.

Very good to see you. Would this be the notorious Bog of Allen?

It would be part of Bog of Allen that will stretch across the Midlands of Ireland.

How extensive are these bogs in Ireland?

-17% of the total landmass of Ireland is bogland.

-That's amazing.

The bogs have developed over thousands of years

as layers of dead plant material have built up in wetland areas.

This eventually transforms into carbon-rich peat -

a resource which has long been exploited by the locals.

-So this is peat and it's useful stuff?

-It is, yeah.

Traditionally it would have been used to provide fuel for domestic homes.

Probably, over the last two or three centuries, it would have been cut by had into sods

and the sods would have been turned during the summer to be air-dried.

That provided fuel and cooking fuel for the winter time.

For most of the 19th century, as the world enjoyed a love affair with coal,

peat was seen as an inferior fuel.

While a few industrialists experimented with it, creating new products like briquettes,

many felt that the bogs would best be drained and converted for agriculture.

By the early 20th century,

peat's potential value as an alternative form of energy was realised

and, for the first time, a serious peat industry grew up.

You're now doing this on an industrial scale.

We are. It probably was brought to a head by the Second World War

and the fuel shortages that were caused throughout Europe

due to the emergency, as we call it, the Second World War.

We decided to invest in our own future here

and provide an indigenous source of fuel on an industrial scale

that wouldn't leave us open to threats of shortages of fuel internationally.

Is it still used mainly in people's homes?

Most of what we do is to provide electricity.

The peat that you're looking at is loaded here

and brought to a power station and burned to make electricity.

These days, peat extraction is controversial.

It's estimated that over three-quarters of the Republic's bogs have already been lost,

with side effects including loss of wildlife and the release of greenhouse gases.

This company has made a commitment to drain no new areas,

concentrating on bogs like this, first drained 40 years ago.

How do you get rid of the water?

It's about drainage.

We have to dig outfalls around the periphery of the bog

and, internally, we put in these ditch drains here.

If you like, it's like a big grid of drains,

50 foot apart, right across the bog.

The harvesting is done by machines

which scrape off the top layer of peat.

Once the peat has been exhausted, plans for so-called cutaway bogs

include turning them into nature reserves and even wind farms,

but that's not what I've come to see.

Amazingly, this soggy environment supports a huge railway network.

Justin, I'm amazed by what I'm seeing here.

I assumed I'd see you putting down sleepers and laying each track on each side, but none of that.

This is just a Meccano kit. It's all ready-made.

It's all pre-assembled and the lads put down around 400 yards every day.

-400 yards of track?

-Yeah.

Railways are the perfect way to transport peat

because the weight can be spread across the boggy ground.

The lines being laid are temporary tracks,

but this bog is also home to a network of permanent lines.

What scale of rail operation do you have here?

-In total, 600km of permanent rail line.

-That's amazing.

That's almost like a national system.

It's actually probably the biggest industrial railway in Europe.

What quantity of rolling stock do you have?

We have 200 locos and 1,600 wagons.

-You really are a major railway.

-It's huge. It's actually huge.

Since peat reserves are finite, the future of the industry is uncertain.

But, for the next few years at least,

the bog trains will continue their work.

'Having changed trains in Dublin, I'm now rejoining my south to north route,

'on the Dublin to Drogheda line, completed in 1844.

'My next stop is a seaside town with a rich history.'

I'm now headed for Balbriggan, which my Bradshaw's guide tells me

has "a harbour inside a pier, 600ft long, with a fixed light,

"35ft high, visible ten miles distant."

And he says, "The Cargee half tide rock lies one mile northeast.

"I get the impression of a community that lived from the sea

"and with great respect for the sea."

'In Bradshaw's day, however, Balbriggan was more than just a fishing town.

My guidebook writes of "the stocking, linen

"and embroidery trades flourishing here in the 19th century."

'Before I arrive I want to see whether my fellow passengers know

'of this textile heritage.'

I'm heading for Balbriggan. Do you know it?

I live in Balbriggan, yeah. It's a lovely place.

It actually means, the town of the small hills.

In Irish it's 'Baile Brigin'. I've lived there all my life.

In the old days, apparently, it used to manufacture stockings. Do you know anything about that?

That's right, yeah. Down in Drogheda Street they made socks.

I think it was called Smith's.

-They used to make socks for the Queen.

-For Queen Victoria?

-Yeah.

I'm not too sure if it was Queen Victoria, but they made socks there.

What sort of socks or stockings did she wear?

I couldn't tell you that. That's classified.

-But they came from Balbriggan?

-They came from Balbriggan, yeah.

In fact, Balbriggan's textiles were once so famous that the

town's name became a byword for a type of knitted cotton.

I'm getting off at the harbourside station to see what this place

is known for today.

Even from the station, even from the train,

it looks a charming, charming place.

By the time the railway reached Balbriggan in 1844,

the textile trade was well established, and after the rails

arrived it continued to expand, with new factories built beside the line.

And the story about the royal penchant for Balbriggan's wares

seems to be true.

Indeed, one Thomas Mangan, who was a hosier with the company Smyth,

supplied Queen Victoria with stockings for more than 60 years.

In recognition of that, she sent him a signed photograph of herself,

commending him for being

a "conscientious worker, though in a humble position."

Well into the 1900s the town continued to be famous

for stockings, long johns and other underwear,

but by the end of the century,

the industry had succumbed to competition from cheap imports.

These days no trace of the stocking industry remains,

but the railway is still here overlooking the lighthouse

mentioned in my Bradshaw's guide.

The town sustains a modest fishing industry, mainly for prawns,

so I've come for a chat with some local fishermen

to see how the rails and the sea have shaped the town.

Gentlemen, would you mind if I while away a few moments with you?

No, certainly I'd be delighted.

Great to see you. Lovely summer evening.

Your lighthouse is rather famous, I think.

The lighthouse dates back to the time the harbour was built.

Roughly, 1761 onwards, right?

OK.

It's one of the oldest ones in the country,

still standing, in the same spot without being changed,

except that it lost its top. It used to have a bell on top.

Does it show a light any more?

It does. It's only a guiding light. It's not really a sea light.

But it is used for guidance?

It is used in guidance but it wouldn't be any use in fog.

Until the 1960s the lighthouse had a much brighter beam,

but even then, resourceful fishermen found other ways to help them into

the safety of the harbour.

So, what navigational tricks do the sailors use?

If it was foggy and you were coming in, you'd listen for the train

going across the bridge.

You'd know then the harbour was near, so you'd follow the sound.

It's one of the few viaducts in the country that runs over a harbour.

-11 arches.

-11 arches, yeah.

These days fishermen have computer systems to help them, but the trains

passing over the viaduct still drum out the rhythms of Balbriggan life.

These fishermen even use the sounds of the trains to tell them

when it's home time.

Well, there's one particular train, the cup o'scald train.

The cup o'scald train would mean the cup of tea train.

To scald the kettle, if you know the phrase.

In Ireland they either said, "to wet the tea", or "scald the tea".

They never said, "make the tea".

And it means to go...?

-It means to go home.

-And enjoy a cup of tea?

-Yes, simple as that.

But, still, probably the most famous train in the harbour, at the moment.

Well, I don't know about the cup o'scald train, but it's time

for me to get some rest, and with the sound of locomotives

and lapping waves to lull me to sleep, Balbriggan will do just fine.

Day two of my journey and I'm back on the tracks.

I'm travelling on what's now the Dublin to Belfast mainline,

built in three stages by three different companies.

I'm on the southern stretch, completed in 1844,

and my immediate destination was for a while the terminus of the line.

My next stop is Drogheda

and my Bradshaw's says that it enjoys a good trade in Irish produce

and that small craft can come up to the quays from the sea,

which is six miles distant.

Which makes the town sound peaceful enough, but it sits upon a river,

the Boyne, which gave its name to one of the most decisive battles

in the history of the British Isles.

At the close of the 17th century,

a bloody battle was fought on Irish soil between rival Catholic

and Protestant British kings.

As my Bradshaw's says, on the 10th July 1690,

the famous Battle of the Boyne took place,

when King William III utterly defeated the Jacobite party.

They were the supporters of the deposed King James II, the Catholic.

The battle was fought at Oldbridge, three miles above the town.

And that battle set the course of Irish history.

60,000 men took part,

making it the biggest pitched battle ever on British or Irish soil.

But the Victorian era also left its mark on Drogheda town.

What's lured me here is this dramatic feat of engineering.

The 30 metre high Boyne viaduct took four years to build,

and created an uninterrupted rail route from Dublin to Belfast

that survives to this day.

The bridge has been updated since Bradshaw's day

but much of the original structure remains.

I'm taking a tour with local museum archivist Brendan Matthews.

-Hello, Michael.

-Hi, good to see you.

-Pleased to meet you.

I've come to admire your wonderful viaduct.

Yeah, a fantastic piece of work.

By 1849, railway lines reaching north from Dublin

and south from Belfast had reached the banks of the river Boyne, but

there could be no through service without spanning its 167m width.

The building of this wonderful bridge,

how significant was it in the history of Irish railways?

Hugely significant. It was the last piece of the jigsaw, if you like.

It was to link the great cities at the time, of Belfast and Dublin.

What did you do, if you were a passenger,

before the bridge was built?

Initially to get the passengers from one side of the river to the other,

they were brought around on coaches.

Horses and carts, and so on.

There was a man employed to do this, called Thomas Simcox, from Drogheda.

He would bus the passengers around, roughly about a mile,

to go down through the town of Drogheda, crossing Mary's Bridge,

through the town on the north side, and then they would board a train

on the opposite bank of the river.

A bridge was the obvious solution but raising the capital

was impossible in famine-ravaged 19th century Ireland.

By the 1850s however the money had been found,

and civil engineer John Macneill was commissioned to produce a design.

He decided on a latticework viaduct, supported by 15 masonry arches

and two vast piers.

Construction began in 1851,

and for the town of Drogheda it was a godsend.

It would have created an awful lot of work, quarry and stone, for instance.

Craftsmen, stonecutters, stonemasons,

steeplejacks in order to build the pillars.

So, the coming of the railway and building of the viaduct created work.

-And pride?

-And real pride. It helped enormously because,

as the famine ended, Drogheda responded more rapidly

because of the railway being here.

It was able to respond and get out of the depths of depression

of the great famine.

It was able to get out much more rapidly because of the railway.

The ambitious project wasn't completed until 1855,

but the first train journey took place some two years before.

Under pressure to link Dublin with Belfast

for the Dublin exhibition of 1853,

a temporary wooden structure was erected and put to use.

There was a train carrying two wagons,

and they put on board between 45 and 50 labourers.

Interesting that they mentioned that it was labourers

they put on board to test it out, if you like.

They put these 45 to 50 labourers on board,

the whole lot weighing 75 tonnes.

That was the initial train to come across on the 15th May, 1853.

Newspapers varied in saying between 8,000-10,000 people who turned out

to see this happening.

They would have never seen anything like this,

a great piece of achievement and a great marvel.

Great for the economy of Drogheda, as well.

-And for the morale of the people?

-And for the morale of the people.

It was absolutely fantastic, yeah.

By 1855, the wooden latticing had been replaced by iron,

making this the longest section of latticed ironwork

in the world.

But not everybody welcomed this engineering triumph.

People had a fear of actually travelling over this.

And so many continued their journey by horse and cart

to go from one side to the other and time had to be allowed

for the train to wait on these people to come around

and board from one side to the other.

The original ironwork was replaced by steel when the bridge

was refurbished in the 1930s.

But the Victorian masonry piers are still in place.

Before I leave, Brendan's bought me to the riverbank,

the best place to appreciate the scale of this achievement.

Brendan, it's certainly worth seeing the viaduct from here, isn't it?

It soars above the town

in this wonderful combination of iron and stone.

Absolutely. A marvel in its day when it was constructed.

I see there are pillars built into the river. How difficult was that?

Very difficult by all accounts.

They would have used a method called a coffer dam,

which are metal plates formed into a square tank, if you like,

around the pillars enabling the workmen to work within the tank.

And the water would have been seeping into this coffer dam,

and because of that they brought in the bales of wool

to plug the inside of the coffer dam to stop the water from actually

leaking in, and because of that reason, people had

the belief that the actual viaduct was built on a foundation

of cotton wool,

so therefore people refused to travel over the bridge by train.

-Not good for confidence.

-Absolutely not good for confidence.

Apparently the urban myth still persists.

But I'm not getting the chance to test the bridge just yet.

My last train journey of the day is taking me west

on a branch line from Drogheda.

And although it's mentioned in my Bradshaw's,

it is not a service you'll find in any modern timetable.

Since I've been in the Republic of Ireland

I've been riding on railway lines that were built for passengers,

but this branch off the main Dublin to Belfast line was

built for passengers and freight, and now is a freight line only.

And this massive, veteran American-built locomotive

seems the best way for me to hitch a ride to my next destination.

I'm on my way to Navan,

along the line which until the 1950s was used by passengers.

Nowadays it's a different load that travels these tracks, zinc and lead.

I'm bound for a vast mine

which extract millions of tons of ore each year.

This island's metal industry has roots stretching back

to Bradshaw's day and beyond.

I'm getting the story from Owen O'Neill

who's worked at this mine for 28 years.

-Owen, hello.

-Michael, very welcome.

-Good to see you.

This looks like a formidable operation here. Pretty big.

Yes, it's Europe's largest lead zinc mine, the sixth largest in the world.

I don't think of Ireland as a mining country.

In my ignorance, I thought it was agricultural,

but has there been a lot of mining?

There's a rich heritage of mining in Ireland.

We were mining back as early as the Bronze Age

and there were traces of copper and gold.

In the 18th and 19th century with the Industrial Revolution,

mining became more popular again.

These new mines provided industrial Britain with much-needed metals.

With the advent of electricity, copper especially boomed.

Used for example in the telegraph wires encircling the globe.

At one stage, 19th century Ireland boasted mines in almost every

county, but by the end of the century a fall in metal prices

caused the industry to slump.

It wasn't until the mid-20th century

that interest in metal mining was revived.

Exploration began, and in 1970, this huge reserve

of zinc and lead was discovered.

We produce approximately 2.7 million tonnes

from the underground operation.

We process it in our milling section here

and produce then about 360,000 tonnes of zinc concentrate.

Zinc from this mine is used to galvanise steel,

protecting it from rust and extending its life

in modern products from car bodies to road signs.

And I'm pleased to see you using the railways.

Yes, railways are very important for us. They are 100% reliable.

-Each train is carrying what kind of weight?

-About 600 tonnes.

And we have approximately three trains per day, on average.

This is metal mining on a scale the Victorians could only dream of.

I'm taking a trip deep underground to see it first hand.

I'd like to introduce you to Joe Rice, your guide.

-Pleased to meet you, Michael.

-And we're going down in there?

I'm going to put you into the front seat there.

Belt up and we'll head away.

Amazingly, the mine's 400-plus workers all reach

the underground workings by 4x4.

This is extraordinary to me,

because I'm used to coalmines where you go down in a cage.

-But we're just going to drive away.

-Driving down the decline.

That's the main access into the mine now.

The journey takes about 15 minutes by car and covers around four miles.

So this is like driving down a multi-storey car park,

except you just keep going, don't you?

Keep going, yeah.

How far are you going to take us today?

We will bring you down about 600 metres.

-600 metres deep.

-Vertical, yeah.

It is 1,000 metres, but we not just going right to the bottom.

Unless you want to, I could bring you right down.

-No, 600 metres will do me.

-It's not bad.

With an astonishing 120 kilometres of underground roads here

I am very glad I'm with a knowledgeable guide.

-OK, Michael. We're here.

-Now we're at the sharp end.

This is where it all happens.

Just mind your footing and follow me is probably the best thing.

19th century Ireland's mines were small

and used basic technology to extract the metal.

Here, much of the work is done by huge drilling machines

which bore deep into the rock.

-Right, Michael. We have the machine operator, Declan.

-Declan, hello.

-Michael.

-I guess it's going to be quite noisy, is it?

-Very noisy.

Wear the earplugs definitely. And the earmuffs if you have them.

The drill makes holes up to 80 metres long,

which are then loaded with powerful explosive.

So, actually, the key to getting the stuff out is to blow it out.

Or blast it out, yes.

-Oh, yeah.

-That's fantastic.

-The whole thing is on such a massive scale.

-It is.

The extracted ore is then taken to the surface

to be crushed and processed,

then exported abroad to be smelted.

Much of the lead will be used in batteries, while the zinc

finds its way into everything from washing machines to screws.

And would you expect that as you keep spiralling down

you're going to find more and more?

We're very hopeful.

We have, for years and years, back in the Eighties and Nineties,

we have always been finding as much as we have mined.

It has maybe thinned out a little bit

but we are always hopeful that we will hit the bonanza.

And maybe the real old body's out there.

The mother lode, as they call it. We're hopeful for that.

Whether or not they discover more ore,

exploring this region with my Bradshaw's Guide,

I've certainly uncovered a land that's full of surprises.

Walking the magnificent viaduct at Drogheda reminds me how

the railways transformed Ireland in Bradshaw's day.

But seeing tracks laid across a peat bog and watching

vast quantities of zinc being transported by train convinces me

that 150 years later, the railway is still a formidable technology.

On the next stretch of my trip,

I'll be hunting for ancient relics steered by my Bradshaw's.

Well, that is a most extraordinary set of stones.

I suppose Stonehenge-like.

Learning how 19th century astronomers mapped the stars.

Well now, John, that I do recognise as a telescope.

And travelling on a Victorian country railway

lovingly restored to life.

I might think I was in the wrong place

if it weren't for the tell-tale drift of smoke.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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